Arrant Nonsense

So, I'm dinking around Yahoo Answers today (as one does), and some kid is lamenting the fact that he might have to get a real job while he works on the dream of becoming a fantasy novelist.

Well, yes. Starving in a garret is only romantic if you're not the one starving, and if you don't think about it too hard. Suck it up, sunshine, and welcome to the real world. I wasn't quite that brutal in my answer, but there is Dream, and there is Reality, and making the two come together is Hard Work.

I then detailed my to-do list for the foreseeable future:
1. Graphics worksheet, bio, photo, and a bunch of other stuff for "That Which Is Hidden." Due, well, tomorrow.

2. Synopsis for Sold Soul to send to a place that apparently thinks "write us a synopsis" is easier than "send us the manuscript and don't worry about the formatting."

3. Edits on Cyborg Werewolf. This one needs a rewrite from the ground up from midway through the story. Fun stuff. That's due at the end of the month. Oh, look, it's October.

4. Outline the rest of Angry Bitter Angel. Then write it. Am I a novelist? No, I am not. Do I have any earthly idea what's supposed to happen in my putative Act Two? No, I do not. Awesome.

5. (Backburnered.) Finish the synopsis for not!KKBB/IM, revamp the query, and start sending that damn thing out again.

That's just the writing plate, and it's assuming I don't get any rejections I need to flip today. Look full to you? Yeah, it looks full to me too. But I also have other responsibilities.
1. Today is Laundry Day. Whee.

2. It's a school day. I have to keep the Boy on task while we do that.

3. Somewhere in there, I need to feed my family.

4. Since the Hubby is going to work tomorrow, I have to make sure the house is vacuumed. White pets + black work pants = unmixy.

5. Half hour on the bike.

6. Television has started up again, and that's Family Time. We have Agents of SHIELD and Person of Interest tonight, plus an episode of Last Man Standing to catch up on from last week.

WELL. I guess I should get off the damb interwebs and get my ass in gear, huh.

That's what I saw when I logged onto Yahoo!Answers this morning. Hee.

In other news, I scribbled another 400 words or so in cowboy!sleeping beauty last night and moved my plot forward. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know yet.

I'm getting a vague plot bunny of a supernatural "Survivor" type story where the stakes are death, except Carrie Vaughn and Suzanne Collins have pretty much done that already and I'm not sure I have anything new to bring to that table.

Maybe I just want to tie Ben up and torture him some more. I'm a horrible person.

And someone asks a perfectly legitimate and innocent question, wanting a list of humanoid creatures for her urban fantasy tale. That's all. She didn't ask for the entire plot handed to her on a silver platter. She didn't even ask for names for her characters. She just wanted a list.

And the very first responder pops off at her and says (quote): you can't say its "your" book if other people helped you -- capitalized just like that, and with no period.

To which my response is, succinctly, "Bullshit." (I know, I know, and you can now take your jaws off the floor at the notion of me being "succinct" about anything.)

Writers are riffing from each other, the people around us who aren't writers, and the world all the freaking time. It's what we do. Did my Writing Buddy give me an awesome idea for how to inject a spec element into the not!Iron Man story? Why, yes, yes he did. But I'm the one who wrote it. I'm the one who put the actual words on the actual page. I'm the one who ran that idea right into the Wall of Wrong and then garnered another 250,000 words out of it over three other works.

Did my husband make an errant remark about bears when we were in Glacier National Park? Why, yes, yes he did. But he's not the one who took that remark and turned it into a 6700-word story.

Did AlienSkin run a themed contest that gave me the idea for the Bunny From Hell story? Yup. Did they write the story? Nope. Did I read a movie synopsis that gave me the idea for another story? Sure did. Still my story. Did someone make a blog post about mouse shows that sent me skittering off in new and odd directions (tips hat to ellen_datlow)? Ayup. STILL MY STORY.

I could go on, but you get the point. Ideas come from everywhere. It's what we writers do with those ideas that make the stories ours. And anyone who thinks that writers are just lonely creatures slaving away in a dim room all by ourselves until the story springs, minty and fresh, from our exhausted fingers, with no input from anyone else ever? Has never done this.

I really should stop hanging around Yahoo!Answers for awhile. Kids on my lawn are driving me crazy.

Exhibit A:
LITERARY AGENTS NEEDED!?
I need a literary agent badly! They need to be interested in new teenage authors. Also interested in short story collections, that are... A bit twisted.

Don't we all need a literary agent, honey. And that's not a question, and therefore I didn't use a question mark. Go out and find one, because they're not going to knock on your door. Short story collection? Yeah, I've got eighteen stories sitting on my hard drive that would love to be in a collection. Collections for unknown authors don't happen. Get off your hiney and start subbing to publications. Be prepared for rejection. Lots of it.

Exhibit B:
Where can i get paid to write short stories?
I'm looking for information or links to journals, magazines, publishers seeking short stories. I will write anything including erotic stories for pay!

Yeah, hey, if you can find that Magical Journal that was actually seeking short stories the way you mean it, point me that way. That ain't how publishing works. Write the story and then start sending it out. Those guys aren't going to knock on your door either.

Exhibit C:
Why do I suck at writing stories?
I am great at poetry and essays (I'm not being conceited; I'm just stating the facts. lolz) and I am also great with coming up with story ideas (not in my opinion, but according to other people.). But, when it comes to actually trying to write a story, I always get frustrated at myself and give up! I keep comparing my writing to authors I love, which I know I shouldn't do. I should find my own writing style and not try to imitate others, but I can't help it!

Do you think that novels spring, fully-formed and complete, from the foreheads of writers? NO. Months and sometimes years of blood, sweat, tears, booze, swearing, and revision after revision after revision after revision. Sure, what you buy in the bookstore, penned by your favorite author, is going to be brilliant--they didn't just whack out a first draft and send it in. Their first drafts suck too, believe me.

Good god.

A person asks: How do you write your first draft of your story?

And I answer:

1. Remind myself that the first draft is allowed to suck. Nay, is GOING to suck.

2. Attempt to come up with a pithy first line to get the writerly juices flowing. Figure out what the opening scene needs to do.

3. Tear my hair out as my characters (a) refuse to cut to the chase, and then (b) refuse to do what I need them to do for my PLOT. Such as it is at this stage. Outline? What outline?

4. Work around that. Okay, my protag is not the kind of guy who will just walk up to someone and kill them in cold blood. What would he do instead?

5. Post something whiny on my LJ about the plot not coming together. At which point I get an idea about bringing the plot together, and the post becomes moot.

6. Realize that the story I originally intended to come in at 5,000 words is probably going to be twice as long. Tear my hair out some more. I'm getting a bald spot. Hey, booze!

7. Realize my villain has no motivation, other than He's an Abusive Bastard. This works in real life. Fiction, not so much. Gah. More hair pulling. More booze, less mixer.

8. Realize that I don't actually WANT my protag to kill my villain and thus sully himself. Figure out a workaround for THAT, which involves manipulating someone ELSE into killing the guy, who really does need killing. I'LL DO THAT. Drinking the booze directly from the bottle now.

9. Roar to a conclusion. Realize that I put a loaded werewolf on the mantle in Act One and then DIDN'T have him go fangs and fur in Act Three. This is a problem. But, hey, I have an "end."

10. Realize that the story is irretrievably broken. Cry. Drink some more. Whine to my Writing Buddy, who offers me a very nifty solution! HOPE IS RENEWED.

11. Dive into the second draft.

*reads that over* Man, it's like making sausage. You really don't want to know.

Process? I'm supposed to have a process?

In other news, I read hitman!Ben to the Hubby yesterday, and he still thinks there's something missing but can't put his finger on it. And I tend to agree with him, but can't put my finger on it either...

Oh, wait. There it is. Maybe. I've got about 50 words to play with here. Let's see if I can pull it off in less than that.

And I think I'm going to say, tentatively, that I hit it. I'm not sure it's "perfect," but it's pretty damn good. I'm thinking of posting it up again, because the end has changed...quite a bit. To put it mildly.

It's still banging on 10,000 words. This is...not ideal, but, you know. I'll deal. I've looked at it from top to bottom and I really can't see where to cut without doing bad structural things to it, so, there it sits.

A story about Ben where he doesn't die, isn't beaten to within an inch of his life, and stays un-kidnapped. AMAZING. I'm not sure he'll forgive me the dead girl or the giant double-cross, but such are the vagaries of having me as a creator and my Writing Buddy as my Willing Accomplice in Eviltude.

In other news, I gave some less-than-gentle crit to someone on Yahoo Answers today, and she actually IM'd me and thanked me for being honest instead of blowing smoke up her ass. She's 14, and I'm very impressed by her maturity--and she gave me a Best Answer. That brightened my day quite a bit. THERE IS HOPE FOR THE YOUTH OF AMERICA.

just asked about writing process. *snort*

Process? I'm supposed to have a "process"? Okay, here's what happened for the last short story:

1. Either (a) decide I hate everything I'm currently working on, or (b) run up against a contest deadline. Either of these circumstances require me to come up with something new, stat.

2. Poke the Plot Bunny Hutch to see what hops out. Catch the Bunny and scribble the first line that comes to mind--which in this case came from my list of first line prompts. The first line may not survive the last edit, but I'll worry about that later.

3. Zombies? Really? Crap, I hate zombies. *sigh* FINE.

4. Realize that I'm using Robert and Susan as first names. Anyone who knows me remotely will know instantly where that came from. No can do. Besides, first person will work a lot better with this. And present tense will be even BETTER. What's that? We haven't done first/present in original fiction yet? First time for everything. Change "Susan" to "Susie."

5. Get a horrible mental image for the last scene, because damned if I outline. No. Bad brain. I hate you. Stop that. Eh, what the hey, we'll write in in the little notebook and file it away for later. You never know.

6. Scribble. Scribble some more. Wait, stuck? STUCK? On SCIENCE? In a ZOMBIE STORY? Oh, for the love of...

7. Realize that the story might change drastically if the protag is female rather than male. NO. MAKE IT STOP. It doesn't matter, because no matter who it is, they have no resources. Keep the Dad. In retrospect, keeping the Dad turns out to be an excellent idea.

8. Noodle more ideas. Rant. Cry. Whine on LiveJournal. Which actually kicks something loose. Scribble some more.

9. Oh, hey, THERE's my theme. I hope it makes sense by the time I finish this.

10. Talk it over with my Writing Buddy. Nearly kiss him, because now I have an ending that actually works. Yay. All I have to do (cue hysterical laughter) is get there from here. I'm still massively stuck. Beginning to hate this thing. Where's a handy bridge when I need one?

11. Research. Why do the building names at the University of Texas at Austin give you absolutely no clue what they're actually used for? Create a new building from whole cloth, because I'm the writer and I can and this is Future!Fic.

12. Hey, wow, is that ALL the cerebrospinal fluid the human body has? Huh. Wonder how much of that you can lose before you die... Nevermind. I'll just take it ALL, and it won't matter. And that sends me skittering off in another, even more Evil, direction. Mwahaha. I don't hate it anymore, although my family is backing slowly away from me.

13. Oh, hey, and that turns on its tail and goes even MORE evil. *twirls imaginary mustache* My family's speed, in backing away, has increased.

14. THE END OMG FINALLY. Oh, yeah. Mine is an evil laugh. My id, let me show you it. My family has fled precipitously, and the cat is eying me with her tail poofed.

15. Edit? I have to edit it now? Well, yes, because it's too long. Let's try and get it under 7,000 words, shall we? Fine...

16. Let it lie fallow for most of two days. Still don't hate it on a re-read. This is good. Something bugs, though. Not sure what.

17. Whack words out left and right. Add some here, subtract some over there. Dude, that part goes nowhere. KILL IT. But I like it! Kill it anyway. Fine. Still something bugging.

18. Post it for the Usual Suspects. Bite nails, hope they don't hate it.

19. They don't hate it, and they have good suggestions. Incorporate them. Still something bugging, and they didn't catch it.

20. Realize what has been bugging me ALL ALONG about this thing. Passive voice! ARGH. An hour and a half later, that is fixed. Whew. That's better. Way better. HAH.

21. Give it to the Writing Buddy for one more pass. Once he's torn into it, I will edit it one last time, read it over for typos, format it, and ship it off to Writers of the Future.

You had to ask, didn't you? It's like making sausage. You really don't want to know.

And that's just for a short story...

Yeah, I just saw this terrible "advice" on Yahoo Answers again. And kind of snapped. And ranted. I shall reproduce it here for posterity (because it's entirely possible it will be reported for "abuse"--which I will fight):

Write what you know, yes. And then research the rest. If all we ever wrote about was what we KNEW, I wouldn't have stuck an "end" at the bottom of my zombie story this morning. I looked up cerebrospinal fluid, and theories of zombie physiology, and mapped from Lampasas, TX, to Austin. I looked up a map of the University of Texas at Austin. I checked to see what sort of medical research they do there. ALL of it played into my plot--and I didn't know ANY of it when I started.

For other story-related things, I've looked up 9mm gunshot exit wounds. California firearms laws. Stockholm Syndrome. MRI's. Height and weight averages for men. Needle placement for an IV. Guns in general and particular. Defibrillators. Whether beheading kills a bee instantly. PTSD, flashbacks, and panic attacks. The list is endless.

But if I just stuck with "write what I know," I wouldn't get very far. Writers are not endless encyclopedias of knowledge AND THAT'S OKAY. It's just a matter of knowing where to find the information you need. And, yes, asking questions on Yahoo Answers is a perfectly legitimate way of doing it. However, I'd verify any information you got from here with an outside source, because some people here act like they know what they're talking about when they actually don't.

[redacted paragraph on basic research tools and what she could use to find what she's looking for]

"Write what you know" assumes that you can't find stuff out. How boring would that be?

If these kids were stuck with "writing what they knew," then all they'd write about is high school. If I stuck with "writing what I know" I'd never have written either of my novels--or (probably), any of my short stories. I can't think of a single one (not even the Bunny From Hell story) that I didn't have to do SOME research on. If all we wrote was "what we know," then where would fantasy and SF come from? How many SF writers have an actual background in hard science? Some of us, sure (hey, I've got a degree in Biology I never use), but not all. Probably not even most.

I am so sick and tired of seeing people get their chops busted for asking a perfectly legitimate research question on Yahoo Answers. Sanctimonious idiots spouting a slogan they don't even know the meaning of and sounding all authoritative and shit.

GAH.

Really, I have no idea what this person was really asking, but I couldn't resist answering. And yeah, that's a screencap, because I'm afraid the question will disappear. Of course I cited a source. What do you take me for?



In other news, I have forward movement on the Zombies! story. If only I knew where it was going.

I've been hanging around on the Yahoo Answers Books and Authors board for ... oh, about a week now. I've answered enough questions and gotten enough "best answers" that I've somehow managed to qualify as a "top contributor" (whatever that means in this context).

But I think it may be time for me to step away from it, at least for tonight. I've been a tad snippy with the last three questions I've answered, and that's probably not good.

Of course, the last one was "Don't you think this story deserves to be published?" with a link to it on Fictionpress. I click the link out of morbid curiosity and note that the author seems to be having trouble sticking with a single tense, sometimes within the same paragraph. I backbutton and note said tense trouble in my response.

The one before that was "Unit test on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?" with a list of multiple choice questions. I don't know if this kid wants us to do his homework for him or what, but my (rather short-tempered) answer was "read the story, it's not that long." Sheesh.

And the one before that is "Can you help me out with my storie?" (yes, spelled just like that, OW THE PAIN), and she posts a wall o'text and seems to be confuzzling an epilogue with a prologue and I may have been a little bit mean to her too, but DAMN, people, at least make an effort at the frelling craft, okay???

*pants*

Writing? What is this "writing" of which you speak?

Also, I don't think I'm going to get to see Iron Man 2 until Monday. This grieves me.

Also? My uterus can quit jacking me around just any time now. The back pain that has decided to concentrate on my knee is most unwelcome. And I'm still not bleeding, even though I probably should have started doing that a week ago. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.