Two Dead Guys

Canine Editor

2010-07-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

Given what I'm writing about, this really made me laugh:

(Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com)

The future will be crowdsourced and datamined

2010-05-05T16:28:00.001-07:00

My story Fatebook is one step closer to reality

Google Invests in App that Predicts the Future

DRM this!

2010-04-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Hi hate Digital Right Management schemes almost as much as the next guy. Sure, the direction media are moving towards prevents me from doing things I used to do. I can't loan the movie I watched last night in streaming like I could have done with DVDs or, if anyone remembers those, VHS tapes. I cannot loan the book I just finished without handing my precious Kindle as well.

However, I have to admit that I've never been much of a book loaner. In fact, books are pretty much the only things for which I write down every time whom I have loaned to, at least since losing a bunch of them forever in high school. And movies, well, I never liked buying them in the first place.

Even better: for a monthly fraction of what a single DVD would have cost me 10 years ago I can have unlimited streaming of movies directly to any wired or wireless room I enter. And I can read a Kindle book at lunchtime on a laptop somewhere, come home after work, pick up the Kindle and continue reading exactly where I left on the laptop at work. Could I do this with traditional media? Hardly, not at least without acquiring and carrying everywhere a bunch of bulky physical objects.

Will these help me getting over DRM limitations? I'm definitely thinking about it. After all, why should any of these perks come for free?

Taking a snapshot of the e-publishing debate

2010-04-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

The current debate about digital publishing, authors' rights might be informed by a recent NYTimes piece about digital photography:

"[...]the huge shake-up in photography during the last decade. Amateurs, happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether." (For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path - NYTimes.com)

Sounds familiar? Literary magazines are disappearing with University budget cuts. Science Fiction digests are going the way of the Dodo.

Yet, today there are more pictures and stories available and accessible than ever before. And let's not even get started about music.

Are all of them good? Of course not. As always, readers will be seeking the authoritative opinion of aggregating sites ("online magazines?") or simply their peers (think Netflix ratings). That is the next market.

Meanwhile authors fight about crumbles, and few realize that writing one novel every year or two as a profession will soon disappear.

As it turns out, lots of famous writers of the past had day jobs, and they still produced remarkable work:

Another 6 word story

2010-03-08T21:15:00.001-08:00

An orphan inherits. The plot Dickens...

6 x 6

2010-02-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

(Six word stories, times six = Fun!)

She split when he sawed her
Ocean washed away remains. He hoped.
“Mission Accomplished.” hollered far from hostilities.
Sunset, skin prickled. Fur growing fast.
Good versus evil. Sadly I lost.
Saying no was best. Then again...

Something every YA writer should keep in mind...

2010-01-25T12:11:00.000-08:00

(From http://xkcd.com/693/)

The year in writing

2010-01-23T19:33:00.000-08:00

Weeks have gone by since I have finished a story, or even seriously worked at one. Here it is, I openly admit it, and in writing too: My name is Paolo and I'm a non-writer. True, I have an increasingly demanding day job (currently a night job to be technically accurate). And in addition to that, the last month or so has been pretty much taken by moving to a new house, starting to fix up the new place, and dreaming of what it could be like some day soon. Still, at some level, these feel like lame excuses. Time is fluid, shapeless, I try to hold it and it percolates through my fingers, evaporates when it touches the ground in twirling silver clouds. And the more time evaporates this way, the more one feels something is "broken," the harder is to restart the good writing habits.

So I'll use this space to warm up my fingertips, and reminisce the past for the customary declaration war on the future so many of us seem to post in the month of January. 2009 was not bad. I finished up the first mystery novel in the Two Dead Guys series, and went through a first round of rewriting. However I did not submit it, and honestly I feel that it's not quite ready for submission yet.

I have also written a short, urban fantasy novel, Randagio (also in Italian) for which I see no possible commercial outlet. It was fun to write, though, I kept plugging away at it, revising pieces that didn't work, rewriting and adding to it, finding assonances and links with the weird interconnected universe in my head.

For what concern the English speaking (or should I say reading?) world, a couple of stories have been around on the web, one placed in the first 10 or so in the Anthology Builder Contest, another was recommended in the Spec the Halls annual Christmas story review, and even translated into Italian. I received some interesting critiques to one of the stories and have been lucky enough to win a free story critique from an author I admire. And finally, I started it, the big project, the novel I had been planning and collecting scraps for years and years. That's the project I got stuck on, and in retrospective, for good reason: it's daunting, I have been collecting materials for years (a sure symptom of World Builder Disease). And I'm still not comfortable with the storyline. I am almost wondering if it wouldn't be better to restart from scratch. And I have been wondering that for too long now.

In conclusion, while quantity-wise the work done was not bad, I think I missed the spark, the motivation to go out of my way to produce work to be proud of. Or, sometimes, the will to publish and distribute it. Changing all that should be part of my resolutions for 2010:

Send my word around the interwebs, submit it to who might like it, publish it, or just read it for fun. Don't let is sit in some virtual drawer.
Revise and rewrite: there might be a destination for the first Two Dead Guys chapter, if I look hard enough for it and if I have something decent to show for my work.
Write (at least) one new story I'm proud of, submit it for the free critique I won.
Seriously think about scraping the Big Project and restarting on something I feel I can tackle.

Above all, my number one resolution is to have fun. Writing will never be my career, but in a way it's so much more. It's a refuge, and a ticket to live multiple lives and to reflect on the world with unrestrained (and unrestrainable) freedom.

I'll try to remember this every single day.

Scratching my head with an open-sourced robotic arm

2010-01-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

Cory Doctorow - Makers

A few things come to mind reading Cory's latest work: optimistic, fascinating, charming, wait am I reading the same novel as last chapter, is he making this up as he goes. Unfortunately makers does not have the tight plot and tension of Little Brother, and if the nerd family saga is fascinating, the novel wanders here and there for a long time before getting somewhere. Still one wonders why some parts of the novel are there at all, or so much attention is given to viewpoint characters that fade then in the background. Cory also needs a new editor, like Little Brother this work is replete with repetitions and even the occasional wrong tense.
And then there's the Sex Scene, or we could perhaps call it the *OMG Nerd Sex Alert* I want to think about this as some sort of in-joke, especially because Usenet is mentioned at some point of the novel. A total break from the tone and vocabulary of the novel which read exactly like those old alt.sex.stories posts. Don't get me wrong, there is lots of good stuff here. Tons of it, in fact. I just wish I got to read the actual novel, and not this first draft that somehow ended up printed.

I'll take mine blended

2010-01-02T19:24:00.000-08:00

You know about those B-movies people say "it's so bad it's good"? Well, Avatar is quite the opposite: it's so good it's bad. Thankfully, the 3D version stunning visuals are very enjoyable and the 2.5 hours go by pretty fast. It's a beautifully rendered cartoon, well (albeit predictably) plotted and fast paced. Yet, it's still a cartoon. Cheesy writing, ham-fisted acting, totally condescending voice over. Why spend all this money and have all these artists come up with something so grandiose and well designed (its great once in a while to see spaceships that actually make sense) to then dumb it down so much? It really felt like being in a French restaurant where they cooked this amazing meal, just to toss it all in a Kitchenaid blender so you could suck it all up in a straw. Sure it still tasted great. But it could have been so much better.

My 2009 Reading List

2010-01-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

What a reading year it was! Among the great stuff I discovered (or re-discovered): the sprawling Urazawa's graphic novel 20th Century Boys (after viewing the first part of the movie trilogy at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival). Logicomix, another unexpected graphic novel gem. Then a Jim Thompson orgy, the most recent Fred Vargas novels, 2/3rds of the Larsson trilogy, and quite a few remarkable Italian novels ("La solitudine dei numeri primi above all"). More to read in 2010, the more I read, the more they seem to pile up, and now I have the Kindle virtual pile to contend with. Happy New Year!

The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, Michael Scott
The Shadow in the North: A Sally Lockhart Mystery, Philip Pullman
The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics, Julian Barbour
Twilight , Stephenie Meyer
Winterkill, C. J. Box
Savage Run, C. J. Box

Chaud devant !: Abuli, Bernet
Open Season, C. J. Box
Ni fleurs, ni couronnes: Sanchez Abuli, Jordi Bernet
The Way Some People Die, Ross Macdonald

The Women, T.C. Boyle
The Tin Princess, Philip Pullman
The Criminal, Jim Thompson
Budding Prospects: A Pastoral, T.C. Boyle
Savage Night, Jim Thompson
Cristiani di Allah, Massimo Carlotto
The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, Otto Penzler, Tony Hillerman, eds.

The Tiger in the Well (Sally Lockhart Trilogy, Book 3), Philip Pullman
20th Century Boys, Tome 16, Naoki Urasawa
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
20th Century Boys, Tome 15, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 14, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 13, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, tome 12, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 11, Naoki Urasawa
Il signor figlio, Alessandro Zaccuri
20th Century Boys, Tome 10, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 9, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 8, Naoki Urasawa
Il bravo figlio, Vittorio Bongiorno

20th Century Boys, Tome 7, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, tome 6, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Tome 5, Naoki Urasawa
Pinocchio, Winshluss

After Dark, My Sweet, Jim Thompson

20th Century Boys, Volume 4, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Volume 3, Naoki Urasawa
20th Century Boys, Volume 2: The Prophet, Naoki Urasawa

Come Dio comanda, Niccolò Ammaniti

20th Century Boys, Volume 1: The Prophet, Naoki Urasawa
La via dei lupi. Storia di una ribellione nel Medioevo romatico e crudele, Carlo Grande

Tre uomini paradossali, Girolamo De Michele
La modista. Un romanzo con guardia e ladri, Andrea Vitali,
The Getaway, Jim Thompson
Pop. 1280, Jim Thompson
Les Marins perdus, Jean-Claude Izzo
Sans feu ni lieu, Fred Vargas
Coule la Seine, Fred Vargas
Un lieu incertain, Fred Vargas: Livres

Dans les bois éternels, Fred Vargas

Sous les vents de Neptune, Fred Vargas
Le rituel de l'ombre, Eric Giacometti, Jacques Ravenne
Tex. Uomini in guerra, Sergio Bonelli, Gianluigi Bonelli, Aurelio Galleppini
Zanardi. Ediz. critica, Andrea Pazienza
Versus, Chainas Antoine
Le sale tour, Ballester/Walsh

L'élégance du hérisson, Muriel Barbery
H1N1, Christian Gernigon
La solitudine dei numeri primi, Paolo Giordano
Out of Range, C. J. Box
Europa molto amore, Giorgio Scerbanenco
The Land of Curiosities (Book 1): Adventures in Yellowstone, 1871-1872 , Deanna Neil

La danza del gabbiano, Andrea Camilleri
Our Stories Remember: American Indian History, Culture, and Values through Storytelling, Joseph Bruchac
Il giorno prima della felicità, Erri De Luca
Mi fido di te, Francesco Abate, Massimo Carlotto

L'età del dubbio, Andrea Camilleri
Belle et Sébastien, Aubry Cécile, Jean Reschofsky

Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, Italo Calvino
Uomini che odiano le donne, Stieg Larsson
Cycler, Lauren McLaughlin
Ariel, Steven R. Boyett
Alinda of the Loch, Oonagh Jane Pope, Julie Ann Brown
Idi di marzo, Valerio Massimo Manfredi

Free Fire, C. J. Box
Savage Season, Joe R. Lansdale
New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2), Stephenie Meyer
A Hell of a Woman, Jim Thompson
99 francs, Frederic Beigbeder
Dopo lunga e penosa malattia, Andrea Vitali

La luna e i falò, Cesare Pavese

Over Sea, Under Stone, Susan Cooper
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest
Liar , Justine Larbalestier
The Somnambulist:, Jonathan Barnes
The Angel Experiment, James Patterson
Indigo Springs, A.M. Dellamonica

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1), Rick Riordan
Makers, Cory Doctorow

20th Century Boys, Tome 17, Naoki Urasawa,

Pianoforte vendesi, Andrea Vitali

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou
Per nessun motivo, Marco Vichi
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan
Morte a Firenze. Un'indagine del commissario Bordelli, Marco Vichi
La ragazza che giocava con il fuoco , Stieg Larsson
Blake et Mortimer, tome 10 : L'affaire du collier, Edgar Pierre Jacobs

Like a Kindle in the wind 2

2009-12-30T21:15:00.000-08:00

During these holidays spent between searing back pain and stacks of recycled cardboard boxes waiting to swallow my life, I was lucky enough to have some quality time to pass with my new Kindle. I am indeed quite happy I finally decided to give it a try, and having it handy will somewhat decrease the sense of desolation best described as “all my books are in lost in some box” which I will need to live with for the next few months.

While there are still obvious limitations to the eReader concept, the product totally surpassed my expectations, especially in the departments where the Nook immediately failed my hands-on test: ease of use and reliability.

The device worked very well, from the start, the screen is pretty good, although not as good as the small Sony Pocket Edition I tried, which had higher contrast and whiter background. Still the Kindle is very readable, and the refresh fast enough not to bother me as I page through books, images and documents. Needless to say I have been tossing at the Kindle every possible format document time to see how it behaves and renders the text and images.

Here is how it scored in various departments:

It is very easy to grab documents here and there and direct them to the Kindle. Moving files in and out is a breeze. Mostly I use Calibre, but direct access via file system is very simple and fast for supported file formats. For conversion even where Calibre failed, Amazon’s free service worked flawlessly. Reviewing papers and book chapters is comfortable, better than on paper as my notes and corrections are saved directly in a clippings file. This could be improved having document-specific clippings (in a special folder) or being able to upload clippings automatically to the Amazon web interface (right now this works, I am told, just for Amazon-originated books and documents).

The wireless connection: perfect! I get better reception in my poorly covered area than with Verizon cellphones. And downloading samples or entire books still has to fail, unlike what seems to happen with the Nook. I had already had that seen the problem in person during a relatively short test at the B&N store. Needless to say it was a major turnoff.

News reading: Pretty good. I used Calibre to download some papers (via RSS feeds) and I started a trial subscription to an Italian newspaper. Calibre can be left to run somewhere (even a server) with a scheduled job, and mail the RSS-extracted paper (Amazon will charger $.15/mailing though) or can simply download to the USB-connected Kindle for free. The Italian paper is not bad, although it looks like a summary of the real thing. The essentials are there, however, and unlike what I read the articles are almost flawless and well suited for screen reading.

Manga/comics: hit & miss. Some look acceptable, others are printed too small for the 6” screen. But the main issues are software rather than hardware: next page and zooming involve too many clicks, that deter from the “natural” reading flow of comics. Sometimes zooming is just not adequate. Additionally, the lack of contrast controls make some of the offerings simply too “pale” to be appreciated. Most likely Kindle DX users have a better experience. What the Kindle is missing so far is better software to handle pictures. Even with limited screen real estate, most the reading problems could be solvable with a Comixology-like interface. While most of the commercial comics I have seen so far are just nor worth buying on the Kindle 2 (and the quality of the selection on Amazon is very poor in any case) “illegal” scans work surprisingly well (in fact the results are more viewable of the “official” editions comics from Amazon). The solution to view well-rendered sequential images is Mangle. Mangle is a total no-brainer: just import a directory of jpeg page scans, outputs in a format optimized for the 6” Kindle. I have used it to access the vast archive of fan-translated scans available on the web. Another example of open source (and illegal) work made necessary by the inefficiency of the official market.

Music: well, this is not that great, functionality is very limited to playing mp3 files in sequence without even seeing what is being played. But what’s most annoying is the quality, with “skips” and crackles in the music when pages are turned or menus are clicked on. Definitely a “not there yet” for the Kindle”

Web: this is surprisingly good given the several negative reviews I have read. I am puzzled: What were people expecting? iPhone quality for free? It’s absolutely great to have quick web access to all sorts of things, from wikipedia to news headlines (hint: use the mobile phone version of the online newspapers), weather or even if your flight is on time. Some preparation might be necessary, of course, so I keep in my documents an updated version of a text file with links to the most useful sites. I just need to open that documents and click, and I’ll be reading the site in a matter of seconds, even with 1-bar coverage. I am totally happy with this, and much rather prefer a limited free service to a pay-for option. People with different priorities and needs that should probably buy a smart phone.

Overall: great fun, totally worth the cost and it might even get better once I take it on vacation.

Like a Kindle in the wind

2009-12-22T11:11:00.000-08:00

‘Twas the week before Xmas, and I gave in to consumerist pressure, and ordered a Kindle2. I had of course immediate buyer’s remorse, went back to the site, but alas, it was already too late to cancel. Amazon is really happy about impulse buying, I guess, the whole Kindle philosophy is based on that. Oh well, I guess I will have to live with my poor choices.

But seriously, I had pondered for a long time about the opportunity to buy a eReader. I love books on paper, I collect them in various editions, read them in every possible place in the house (I’ll spare you the details) and leak coffee on them. Yes, never borrow a book from me, please. And I told everyone I know and their wives that it wasn’t yet the time to shell out the hard-earned dollars for a eReader, given what will happen in 2010 with the current ebook frenzy. Lots of people seem to be on the phone with China to produce new or rebrand old eReaders. Then there’s the Nook, dubbed the “most advanced eReader in the world.” I actually went to a store and tried one, and quickly realized that I needed something perhaps less advanced but that would actually work. I tried the Sony series, great screen (the non-touch version) but no user input. The touch version had great user input but terrible screen.

Then I went to the Apple store. Apple is allegedly working on an eReader killer that will do all sorts of things, some say it will look like a giant iPod Touch. So I tried a small one, for starters. Brilliant! But the problem is, I don’t want a device that does all sorts of things. I don’t want it, because I have about just about a truckload of them already. They are called PCs, Macs, Laptop, Netbooks. They have brilliant shiny screens of the kind that I stare at all day every day, and I have no intention to spend additional time reading on one. There are nice apps for the iTouch, loads of them. Except my netbook has probably more, and they are all free. And I can use it to write too, with a pretty decent non-virtual keyboard. Sure, the iTouch fits in a pocket. But my pocket is already occupied by my Moleskine and Tradio pen. So no thanks, Apple, and I’m not looking forward to the iMyth tablet either.

So I went back home and I thought about what I really needed:

A eInk reader, easy on the eyes
Something I could use for a variety of materials, including:

Books I read for reference, to check about the state of lit in the genres I might be working on. Very often is stuff that I do not care about having on paper.
Scientific papers (so far I kept my day job, as it’s often recommended)
Comics & manga... why not!
All sorts of stuff I find on the web daily: articles, short stories, webzines, etc.
News, again, as I'm tired of reading them on shiny screen

I realized that I buy 75% of my books from Amazon anyway (the other 25% being from local bookstores, 15% Independent, 10% big chains, and always on paper). And that I will keep buying the books that I want to keep and share on paper. At that point the choice was pretty easy. I’m still hoping of course that:

Amazon will support at some point the ePub format
The choice of newspapers and magazines will expand to include some I actually would like to read
Amazon.fr will start selling Kindle-format ebooks. Because of the caution France is using in digital publications, and the desire to protect traditional outlets, this might take a while.

The truth is, there will be always a better deal and a better device next year, or even next month. The question is, will this one work for me and do all of the things I listed above? Waiting for the UPS Santa Elves to bring me the answer. Happy Holidays!

Almost... but not quite!

2009-11-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

Steampunk is fashionable, these days. And this book had almost all the characteristics to make it a champion of the genre. I actually rescued it from the non-genre part of the bookstore, and indeed it almost had the literary qualities to be shelved there. It reminded me a lot of Susanne Clarke (the main character, Edward Moon, really feels like a clone of Mr. Norrell). And indeed, the atmosphere of the book has almost the charm of the Jonathan Strange saga. The characters are almost as quirky as in a Gaiman book (and indeed the Prefects are totally lifted from Neverwhere, of which the Somnambulist unfortunately lacks the wit. Finally the grandiose underlying conspiracy, and the gothic details are almost as pictoresque as in any Adéle Blanc-Sec graphic novel.

Don't get me wrong: I almost had a lot of fun reading this one :)
Also cited, for anyone interested:

In other news and information

2009-11-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

My story, Fatebook has been chosen to be one of the finalists at the Match-that-Artwork AnthologyBuilder contest. The finalists names have been now posted. It'd be a great Christmas gift to be the winner, but being one of the finalists is already pretty cool. Below the image that inspired the story.

Meanwhile I'm slowly (very slowly) dragging my feet through the first few chapters of the NaNoWriMo novel, Forgotten Sons (working title). Looking for the right voice, wrestling with words, seeking the vein to tap to get it to flow...

NaNoWriMo & Christmas

2009-11-15T19:07:00.000-08:00

While according to the calendar, half month is now officially shot, the count still stands at a solid and round zero. I was glad however to discover that the story that delayed my NaNoWriMo start has been selected as "recommended" at the Spec the Halls Christmas Story contest.

Also, as of today I finally have an outline for the first novel of the Forgotten Children saga, the very one I should be writing this month. Sure, the outline still has enormous holes, with words like "rescue" or "something horrible happens" that takes the place of entire chapters. But even a safety net is full of holes, and I finally feel I can start to swing on the trapeze. Wooooh, the view is really scary from up here!

Rediscovering Magic: Indigo Springs

2009-11-12T12:03:00.000-08:00

After few pages, I still didn’t know what to expect from Indigo Springs. It starts in medias res, and for a while I was wondering how to unravel all the information fed to me, taking in all the implications of the wonderful and scary things that are hinted to. Magic-powered terrorists on a rampage in the homeland? It reminded me a little initially of Palahniuk’s Lullaby, especially given the similar “frame story” setup . Except that all the havoc and the cheap thrills happen behind the scenes.

But what about the liquid magic and the flying carpets: how could the author sink hardcore magic into a real-life setting, and make it believable? She succeeds, I think, in a way that goes beyond fantasy: by making us care about the lives of ordinary, small town people in extraordinary circumstances. A.M. Dellamonica masterfully interplays first person narration with the point of view of Astrid, the time-displaced protagonist, as she narrates the (re)discovery of blue magic. It’s an atypical cast of characters, whose status and relationship takes a while to absorb. But the payback is definitely worth the effort, and a thick narration is woven out of every person, place and object, unveiling the wonders little by little, building on anticipation.

And that to me, was the real magic.

NaNoWri: The Never Starting Story

2009-11-09T09:25:00.001-08:00

Day 9 and my word count is still zero.

Tragic, I know. Yet, I have hardly rested. I finally finished a short story and (with some help from an exceptional editor) submitted it to this year's Spec the Halls Christmas story contest. And I have been working on the novel, I swear. I even have a working title, and a soundtrack to go with it.

More seriously, I have been trying to put some order in the chaos that accumulated in 4 or so years of notes about the universe and the story. It might seem like lots of material, and the problem is that it's possibly way too much for one novel. Sometimes it's divergent. Sometimes inconsistent (the main character changed gender and name 3 or 4 times through the years). So far I have written the "bible" of the novel (or perhaps, of the series of novels if this one clicks) and I have taken a stab at the cast of chracters, who they are, what they look like, what they want. Some of them are described in a few paragraphs, other are half a sentence, translucent ghosts.

Now it's the most dreaded time: working on a synopsis of the story. Stay tuned.

From:NaNoWriMo Day 9: Productive | Inkygirl: Daily Diversions For Writers

The Thrill of the Blank Page

2009-11-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

NaNoWriMo essential inspirational words from John Irving

Full interview at http://bigthink.com/johnirving/big-think-interview-with-john-irving

NaNoWriMo: plotting

2009-11-05T21:06:00.000-08:00

Let’s face it: I’m going to lose this year’s NaNoWriMo, big time. I haven’t even been abel to start, focused as I was writing a short story. Last night I finally typed the three magical characters (###) that indicate the end of the end in the standard manuscript format. More work is required, but it will be of the editing kind, which I will do later at night when all those creative energies are about to go to sleep.

But at this point we are 5 days into November, and I still have a big round ZERO word count. What is worse, I haven’t thought about a plot yet. Sure, we know what they say “No Plot No Problem.” But I want this month of November to count for something: even if I “lose” I want the stream of words to be produced to go towards a self-contained, consistent story which I will continue adding on, polish and restructure in the future.

What have now is several years of notes. I have thought in passing about this novel for a long time. Once in a while I would type up some thoughts, toss it in some folder, and forget about it. I almost thought I was suffering from a classic case of Worldbuilder's Disease, but what I lacked was the chance to put all of this together. Now, I have a (slightly less than a) month to do just that, to unravel the garbled yarn in my head, put some order into chaos, and hope that something worth reading will take place in the process.

And if you stay tuned I might even tell you how this is going to happen...

NaNoWriMo: And so it begins

2009-11-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

The plan for this year:

Cheer from the sidelines. Many more people I know are participating, and that makes it even more fun that usual.
Meet other writers, perhaps, if we won't be too busy typing away
Harness the energy. I'm once more playing to lose, focusing more on quality and structure than output, while living this wonderful yearly appointment with collective creativity.
Have fun, as usual!

NaNoWriMo: be prepared!

2009-10-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

NaNoWriMo starts in just a little over 24 hours. How to prepare for the month-long frenzy?
This is what I did the year I won:

told everyone you are doing it, so I couldn't back out
patiently explained to my wife what I had to do and how it'll keep me in total isolation a few hours a day
turned off the TV (well, I never had one, but all similar distractions should be powered down)
rented a cabin in Kernville for Thanksgiving (if you've been to Kernville, you know why. Watch out for cabin fever)
sharpened my technological pencils. Knew what tools to use for max effectiveness from day 1. More on this topic in the days to come.
scheduled my day around it. I still had a day (and night) job, so I’d spend 60 minutes of my lunchtime on it, every late night I wrote notes to develop the day after.
Reminded myself every day to forgive my bad form and lack of interesting plot, and above all, that I signed up for NaNoWiMo for FUN.

It was a great time. I proved to myself I could write a whole novel, and never stopped writing regularly since. Forget about the (likely poor) quality of the output. There are things you learn to internalize in such a month-long effort that stay with you forever.

Planetalyx Information Bureau - Of Infodumps and Exposition

2009-10-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

Great starting point to learn to avoid the plague of infodumps:

Planetalyx Information Bureau - Of Infodumps and Exposition:

"Of Infodumps and Exposition"
My True and Vivid Writing class had a dialogue exercise this week, and that led some of them to a struggle with the practice of slipping exposition into their characters' conversation: a form of infodumping, in other words. They asked about ways to finesse this and I've quickly surfed up a few links to get them started:
http://www.fiction-writers-mentor.com/info-dump.html
http://www.writing-world.com/sf/infodump.shtml
http://research-writing-techniques.suite101.com/article.cfm/avoid_info_dumps_in_dialogue
http://www.therthdimension.org/FictionWriting/Info_Dump_Avoidance/info_dump_avoidance.htm
Has any of you fought this particular battle, and written anything about it? As always, links and tips are very much appreciated!

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

2009-10-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

Back to the writing board

2009-09-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

School is back in session, and I'm back doing the lunchtime writing thing. Since I'm again writing in English, so I thought I might as well send out some sort of signal to the unlimited depths of cyberspace, while warming up my mind and fingers to overcome the usual pitfalls of this barbaric language.

The fog is back on time, and walking outside to my writing perch feels like kissing Lady Death, in all her cold but sensual wetness.

Listening to: http://bit.ly/1zg43w

Almost there...

2008-11-27T10:10:00.001-08:00

Turkey Writer
Originally uploaded by Inkygirl

Almost there, ready for the final rush once the tryptophan rush wears off. It does not look like I will "win" this year, but my personal victory is not far: the novel is continuing, the plot almost makes sense and I'm definitely enjoying quality time with my cast of characters. If "Fire Season" won't be done by Sunday, it will definitely be finished in first draft sometimes in December.

And I'm thankful for that, as for being able to play with the stuff my dreams are made of. Not everyone has this chance. Happy Turkey Day to all.

Like river, like knot

2008-11-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

I often find myself reading several books at once, especially if I’m making my way through nonfiction, which I dislike as entertainment but find occasionally useful. It usually takes just a few paragraphs to get back into that particular story. Some people find this strange, yet they probably follow several weekly or daily TV serials without any less enjoyment.

Some of the books I have read recently however incorporate multiple voices and span years and intertwined plotlines to a point that they move and breathe like multiple intersected novels. One example of that is Sacred Games, a wonderful book whose narrative I follow like current on a river. Other mysteries feel more like knots, convoluted but tight and matter-of-factly.

Most hard boiled falls into this category, Also I love Sue Grafton’s series not just because of its local focus but also for its simple, efficient approach to narrative. Speaking of knots, I’m currently reading also N is for Noose, and it’s difficult to think that these two novels are even in the same genre. I’m not interested in matters of artistic value, of course: all I care for, at least during this month, is to dissect what works, and find out what makes it tick.

So will my novel be like a river or like a knot? Of course I have no ambition to write something with the details and complexity of Vikram Chandra’s novel (which took seven years to complete, something like 84 times the length of NaNoWriMo) but as I move along I find out more about how things work. Initially everything feels like white water rapids, unformed, incomplete ideas spraying around, increasing possibility of sinking or being thrown off course. Then one goes back, little by little, tying the knot.

And that’s what I’m going to do today

Limping along

2008-11-19T10:28:00.001-08:00

Guests, wildfires, dinners, meetings, more meetings, last minute crises, computer malfunctions, fog, too hot, too cold, dog is sick, dog ate my manuscript, printer is out of toner, forgot to recharge laptop, I'm hungry, sleepy, uninspired, lazy, busy, too restless, too lethargic, too interested in other things, no longer interested in anything at all...

Many are the excuses and pitfalls of this month-long ordeal. Just one thought: gotta keep typing those words in. Some parts are inevitably going to suck. Let's leave this out of the feedback loop, evaluate later and, if needed, rewrite. Back to the book!

All of a sudden, my novel is news

2008-11-13T21:26:00.000-08:00

Some of the imaginary drama of my novel, Fire Season, is on the radio right now, Montecito is burning, one canyon away from the fictitious house Nino leaves the night of the fire.

It's a tragedy, families on the run, houses being burned to the ground, the most beautiful part of Santa Barbara going up in smoke. Maybe because I've been writing for so many days about this, I feel really like some inner part of me is going up in flames.

News abound, pictures below:

No blogging today

2008-11-11T10:28:00.001-08:00

In observance of Veteran's day I decided that instead of whining about not writing enough would be better to increase my word count just a little. So I will be doing just that...

Falling behind

2008-11-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

I’m falling quite behind Chris Baty's target of “15k by Monday.” I am not excessively worried as I have tons of notes and outlines for future parts of the novel. However, psychologically it is hard: the word count snowball must roll soon enough to gain the needed momentum and become an avalanche.

What I did was to spend another weekend working on a science fiction story for yet another anthology. I did so somewhat reluctantly. First of all, I’m not 100% to be on target with this submission: they are looking for longer fiction, and I really couldn’t get the story to work over 3000 words or so. It might very well be that my writing efforts will be wasted, and the editor won’t move past the first page reporting the word count.

But the hardest thing was really to leave Nino behind. As I reported already a few times, it’s becoming increasingly painful to leave the novel’s universe for this own. Worse, the longer I stay away, the more difficult it is to once more immerse myself into it, a difficulty that manifests itself in needing to reorganize my thoughts about what happens next, or simply procrastinating the putting of actual words on (virtual paper). The process, I found more and more, is like a snake molting out of its old skin, or like those howlingly painful werewolf transformations from 50s horror flicks. Except, of course, that one is growing all those hair and fangs inside the brain. And that, of all things, is bound to hurt.

Listen to Ed

2008-11-06T14:25:00.001-08:00

One great thing I started doing was following Ed McBain’s advice:

No outline at first, except the loose one in your head, draped casually around the idea.

Once you've found the voice, write your first chapter or your first scene.

This is how Fire Season started: a couple of pages I wrote long ago, without thinking too much about it. Some scenes which kept bouncing around in my head. Nothing was very developed. More of a mood, a tone, the voice of Nino sounding in my head, very similar yet well differentiated from my own.

Outline the novel in your own way [...] The outline is you, talking to yourself on paper

This was the hardest part, the one that took the longest during the first NaNo days. Pieces of the story would emerge, like various colored vegetables in a minestrone, and I would arrange them in some tentative order. I found out along the way that outlines work only in 3rd person, while the novel is in 1st person. Ed is right: I'm talking to myself when outlining. I'm acting as Nino when writing.

Set yourself a definite goal each day. Tack it on the wall

This is easy. And NaNoWriMo works very well to institutionalize that process.

I found that avoiding skipping a day is very important too. But not always feasible. The best advice I actually don’t remember where it comes from. Some interview with some writer. But I found it to work very well: every day I review what I wrote the day before, and quickly edit it. I usually don’t make major changes, but this allows me to end up with cleaner text and to “get back” into that parallel universe. A universe of dangerous adventures but, somehow, greater serenity of the real one.

My week

2008-11-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

Monday: Stress
Tuesday: Despair
Wednesday: Conflict
Thursday: Weariness
Friday: Coma
Saturday: Recovery
Sunday: Dread
Monday: Stress...

One safe islands are the lunchtimes I spend writing in this beautiful place:

On good days, one can see the channel islands, on and the sun’s glitter spread on the ocean. Below, the world goes on in its frantic activity. They look like multicolored mice from here. Everything is silent, and we are suspended above the sphere of the real.

Obamanation

2008-11-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

The reverie has ended, or at least mutated in something concrete, some longer-term objective to look forward to. We will roll up our collective sleeves; get to work to fix the awful mess created during the last 25 years of free market fundamentalism, and the last 8 of futile warmongering. Or so we hope.

For now, the best way to celebrate for me is to go back doing what I love: write some more. For the time being, that means immersing myself once more in the parallel universe of Nino and Bruno, two dead guys roaming the beautiful Santa Teresa surroundings.

The battle, imagined or not, will restart soon enough.

Distractions abound…

2008-11-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

… and reality as usual surpasses fantasy.

Today a man in a ski mask blocked a bridge over the 101, brandishing a gun. The swat team intervened, and the man was finally subdued and arrested, but not before two adjoining cities came to a halt in traffic and, presumably, business.

Tomorrow we are possibly staging one of the most important US Elections in many years. The entire world is on the edge of its seat.

With all this going on, how can one find time to write? Well, that’s what lunchtimes are for, if one is able to find one of those rare, disconnected places where people are forced to stop blabbering on their cells. I’ll talk more about my favorite place in future posts, but let me just say that the view is simply awesome, and in spite of the unordinary folly of this world, the first chapter of Fire Season is done!

Things not to do on the first two NaNo days

2008-11-02T23:14:00.001-08:00

Well, for one, don't spend the whole weekend editing another story! But it's done now, and posted at:

http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/merry-christmas-mr-yao

The story is a part of the Spec the Halls contest for speculative winter holiday-themed fiction, artwork, and poetry. Forguidelines and links to other entries go to

http://www.aswiebe.com/specthehalls.html

As for Fire Season, well, two days gone, zero words. Great start!

My NaNoWriMo 2008

2008-10-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

November is Novel Writing Month, and this year I'm doing it again.

The Procrastinating Act of today is coming up with a synopsis (in English) and a cover (posted on this page. Now I that I got that out of the way I can hope to start outlining it a little during the weekend-- unless of course matters of the utmost importance emerge, like, I don't know, choosing the best font for the job...

So here's the synopsis:

Dead to the world, exiled 6,000 miles from home, and living as a pedicab rider Nino still has a talent for getting in deep trouble. When the house he is renting goes up in flames, Nino finds himself plunged into the lesser known, deadly underworld of beautiful Santa Teresa, California: drugs, gang wars, conspiracies, and a forty year old secret that screams to be revealed and to burn anyone holding it.
Fire Season, a bicycle thriller, is the first installment of the Two Dead Guys©. series.