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Tuesday Therapy: Writing as Sudoku

I’m beginning to feel like the fates have aligned so that each week’s therapy session speaks directly to a writing problem I am currently facing. This hasn’t been prearranged — it’s entirely a fluke — but it’s a happy coincidence. I’ve just passed the 1/3 mark of The Familiar and was starting to wonder if I should be concerned that a lot of the book’s final third is yet unclear, plot-wise. And then I read Kaaron Warren‘s fantastic contribution to this series, and now I have my answer…

Kaaron has been publishing short stories for nearly 20 years — ‘All You Can Do is Breathe’, by the way, is on the ballot for this year’s Stoker Awards — and has recently published three novels with Angry Robot Books. What makes Kaaron’s writing so engaging (and such a joy to read) is that it is so twisted, strange, inventive, and utterly unique. She comes at stories from wonderful, unusual angles — as she has this week’s writing advice.

It struck me last night that writing a story is a bit like filling in a Sudoku puzzle.

You start with a grid, dotted with things you know. Maybe a spark of an idea, a setting, a snippet of conversation. The rest of the grid is blank. Daunting. Some spaces you see straight away how to fill, but others? They seem impossible.

Some of the blanks are easily filled; who’s telling the story? Why? And you can describe your scene, build your character.

Once you’ve done that, the spaces that seemed difficult become easier. The story starts to fall into place until you’re left with only one or two of those impossible-seeming spaces, with the answers now obvious, and you know how your story ends and how you’re going to get there.

Kaaron Warren has won or been nominated for the Stoker Awards, the Australian Shadows Awards, the Aurealis Awards and the Ditmar Awards for her incredible short story collections (Dead Sea Fruit, The Grinding House and The Glass Woman) and her wonderfully creepy novels (Slights, Walking the Tree and Mistification). You can find her online here.

February 21, 2012 | Categories: Tuesday Therapy | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Evil Children in Art (and other tabs I need to close)

I have a terrible habit of leaving about 40 tabs open on my browser at once. Whenever I find something interesting, worth revisiting, or just plain cool, I leave the tab open so that I can look at it again and again throughout the day. Or over the next couple of days. Sometimes over a week. Or more.

Sure, I could bookmark the page, but let’s face it: I’ll click that little star, close the page, and then forget about it. So to ensure that my latest obsessions don’t get obliterated in the Never-Neverland of Lost Tabs, I thought I’d share a few of them with all of you.

First, from Flavorwire, a survey of evil children in art (click ‘view as a single page’ for the best effect). This one has remained open since February 1st because of Ray Caesar’s wonderfully bizarre images:

One day, when there is less writing to do and more time for dilly-dallying on the internetz, I’ll Google him and find out what other treasures he has in store for me, but for now these will have to suffice.

Read the rest of this page »

February 16, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Tuesday Toot… on a Wednesday*

Alan Baxter, warrior scribe, invited me over to his website to participate in his ‘Tuesday Toot’ series, which he describes as: An invite-only series of short posts where writers, editors, booksellers and other creatives have been asked to share their stuff and toot their own horn.

So I blithely headed on over to The Word and chatted about Bluegrass Symphony, the Weird West, Midnight & Moonshine and, of course, Le Novel.

Visit Al’s site to read the whole trumpety thing.

*I tried to share this yesterday, but the internetz weren’t playing nice… Thanks for inviting me, Al!

 

February 15, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

‘Twice Full’ now up at This Is Horror

Woke up to discover that my short short, ‘Twice Full’, is now up at This Is Horror — accompanied by an absolutely gorgeous illustration by Rich Sampson (a detail of which I’ve included to the left.)

Tonight, they dig a second pit on our beach. Big men, all of them, dark hair and skin slick with sweat. Hands slippery on worn shovel handles. Feet bare, soles scorched and cracking. The sun is a glowing boulder buried deep in the ocean, still baking the sand from below the horizon.

For two days, relentless heat. For two days, the grass mattress in our room was a bed of coals. For two days I laboured, but could not get up. Exhausted, I could hardly breathe. Now I stand, finally cool in the shallows. My curls are matted from struggling, from useless pushing and straining. Salt drips into my eyes. My white linen shift is soaked, transparent. It does not flutter in the sea breeze…

Read the rest here.

February 15, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Tuesday Therapy: Writing with Heart (and Fingers)

It’s that time of year again: when the table of contents for many Year’s Best anthologies are being announced; recommended reading lists are being printed; awards nominations are being bandied around the internetz; shortlists are being compiled and broadcast all over the world in acknowledgement of writing published in 2011.

Yes, it’s awards season.

Bearing that in mind, Trent Jamieson‘s advice this week is perfectly timed. Trent is the author of a slew of incredible short stories (some of which are collected in Reserved for Travelling Shows), the Death Works trilogy (Death Most Definite,  Managing Death, The Business of Death) and the Nightbound Land duology (Roil and Night’s Engines) — and he is one of the loveliest people you’ll ever have the pleasure of meeting. (I say “one of” because, seriously, he and Sean Williams would need to duke it out for the title of ‘Nicest Guy in Australian Speculative Fiction’. But since they’re both so nice, neither could possibly lose. Or win. Hence, “one of”.)

To top it all off, he’s provided an illustration to accompany his Tuesday Therapy session (see below), which pretty much rocks. In other words, this week’s advice is full of awesome.

So without further ado:

click to enlarge

Jealousy is poison. Career paths are up and down things so don’t compare your career to anyone else’s. And it’s easier to write when you’re not filled with a bleak despair that everyone seems to be doing better than you. Art isn’t a competition. Enjoy the process, enjoy the challenges, and enjoy the success of others. After all, your colleagues’ successes mean plenty of good stories to read, and you are a reader as well as a writer aren’t you?

Jealousy will poison your heart, and you kinda need that to write*.

*though writing with your heart would be messy. Fingers are better for typing and holding pens.

Trent lives with his wife Diana in Brisbane. His fifth novel, Night’s Engines, is due out through Angry Robot books in June. You can visit his website here. (Make sure to check out his Book Corner segments on Youtube. I dare you not to laugh.)

February 14, 2012 | Categories: Tuesday Therapy | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Tuesday Therapy: Letting Ideas Cook

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to have Margo Lanagan as a tutor at Clarion South. Rumours of Margo’s famous “words not to use” list were proven true (the list included things like ‘crystalline’ and ‘iridescent’, and now I can’t see either of these words without thinking of Margo) and her passion for writing was (and still is) infectious.

This year, Adelaide Writers Week has been dedicated to Margo, which is not only incredibly exciting but also completely deserved. Reading even a snippet of Sean William’s dedication explains why:

Her body of work is extensive: fifteen novels, fifty short stories, and four highly acclaimed short story collections, White Time, Black Juice, Red Spikes and Yellowcake. She is the winner of multiple Aurealis, Ditmar and World Fantasy awards, as well as the 2004 Victorian Premier’s Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the Sturgeon, Stoker, Tiptree, International Horror Guild, Locus, Shirley Jackson, Children’s Book Council, Hugo, Nebula, Commonwealth Writers Prize, alongside the Queensland and New South Wales’ Premier’s Awards. It is a list that aptly describes the diversity of her readership.

On top of all this talent, Margo is an absolutely lovely person and generous with her time and advice. For this week’s Tuesday Therapy, she shares some tips on fostering ideas and letting them grow:

Let your idea cook. I make notes for short stories on sticky notes or in notebooks. Each note is maybe an attractive halfof an idea – for example, “People buying silence in a can, jar, pill, or just downloading some.” Usually I still need a central character and situation. Having chosen a story to begin on, I carry this half-idea around with me, and it becomes my daydreaming material. I escape to it, idly look at it and like it, toss it from hand to hand and push it around whenever I’ve got a spare minute. Then when other business takes over, I move on from it, but at the next daydream opportunity, there it is with all its possibilities coming to life around it.

At some point, when I go back to it, it’s grown an extra, interesting leg – I can sense the character at the core, their age, gender, possible occupation, their mood and maybe a mannerism or two, and I’ll get a sense of what the problem is with regard to their silence-purchases, or their friend’s, or their partner’s. I might make a note about this possibility.
Then in the next little while I’ll poke at that new idea-piece and see if that’s really the one, or if something beyond it or beside it, or completely opposite it, is really the thing that I want to tackle with the story. Sometimes I’ll cast around for a bit, making more notes, asking myself questions; other times I’ll just be so convinced by the idea that actual scenes, bits of dialogue, bits of interior monologue will start forming in my head, and I’ll start putting down the actual story.

The crucial stage of this story-generation is the doing of other things – the day-jobbing, the washing of dishes, the conversations, the not-looking – just as much as the taking-up again and actively working on the story. Hand it over to your subconscious. That way, deeper, wordless, instinctive parts of you get a chance to bond with the idea, and when you reach for it again, it’s gathered a stronger sense of purpose from lying in the muck down there. It means something more to you, and in turn packs a stronger punch for your reader.

Thanks so much, Margo!

Margo Lanagan writes mucky dark fantasy novels and stories. She has a particular fondness for including cranky and unpleasant witches, who are sometimes sexpots, too. Her latest novel, Sea Hearts (published as The Brides of Rollrock Island in the UK), is about selkies; you can view a lovely book trailer for it, including an interview with Margo, over here.

February 7, 2012 | Categories: Tuesday Therapy | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

The Peripatetic Life of the Freelance Editor: In the Lair with Mr Stephen Jones

Today we have kidnapped the much lauded, applauded and awarded Mr Stephen Jones, editor of such tomes as A Book of Horrors, Zombie Apocalypse!, Shadows Over Innsmouth, and the Mammoth Books of Best New Horror, Vampires, Wolf Men and Zombies, as well as recent collections by M.R. James, Karl Edward Wagner, Charles L. Grant and Basil Copper. He really needs no more introduction than that. We gave him a big tumbler of Jack Daniel’s, but he eschewed the comfy chair and insisted upon standing by the fire, elbow on the mantelpiece …

Welcome, Mr Jones.

Dr Angela: So, firstly, how did you get started as an editor? Was it a first love or a deep-seated desire to correct others?

Mr Jones: As much as I love correcting others (mainly because – in my mind at least – I’m nearly always right!), I never actually expected to become an editor. My family has no literary connections and so, except for a love of books and comics and monster magazines when I was younger, I never really saw myself being any way involved in the publishing industry.

I am, if nothing else, aware of my limitations, and I realised very early on that there were always going to be people out there who would be able to write fiction better than I ever could. Therefore, when I began contributing to fanzines in the early 1970s, I sent them non-fiction columns and articles rather than badly written fan fiction. These articles were invariably based around my love of movies.

From there I moved on to editing my own small press magazines and that, eventually, led to editing books. So, as a person of limited skills, that’s pretty much what I’ve done since.

I should stress now that was never The Plan. In fact, I’ve never really had a “Plan” of any kind. There are things that I’ve wanted to do in my life, and some I’ve been very lucky to achieve. Of course, there are numerous others that I’ve failed miserably at.

Dr Lisa: Are there any current trends in horror fiction you’re keen to see die?

Mr Jones: Where shall I start . . .?

When it comes to current trends in horror fiction, I’d like to see most of them go away – from such pointless sub-genres as “paranormal romance”, “urban fantasy” and the “new weird” to the kind of obscenely violent and misogynistic crap you can find online or in the micro-publications.

I’m not advocating a return to the past – god knows, of all genres, horror should be about what we fear now – but I do think that the field has lost its way somewhat over the past decade. And some of the blame for that has to be laid at the door of the low standards exemplified by various awards systems, low-rent publishers, and the current batch of dumb and derivative movie-makers.   Read the rest of this page »

February 6, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Clarkesworld interview!

Recently, the most excellent Jeremy L. C. Jones interviewed me for the February issue of Clarkesworld magazine — and it’s now live!

In ‘Wendigo, Waistcoat, Spyglass and Other Words’ Jeremy and I chat about style, the short form, and “the human side of even the nastiest creatures.” Jeremy asked such fantastic questions — it was an absolute pleasure answering them.

Why the short form? What is it that you love about the short story?

Initially, I started writing short stories because I was also working on my PhD, which is a long and often tedious process. I wanted to write something brief, immediate, with a clear end in sight. Also, I had loads of ideas for stories, and no matter how much I tried to ignore them, more kept cropping up. I’d be reading all sorts of dry academic articles or translating passages from the Icelandic sagas while my back-brain was jumping up and down, shouting “There’s a crow stuck in a mechanical carnival! What’re you going to do about it?” or “She’s got to sing while eating corpses! How’s she going to do that without a voice?” Things like that are hard to ignore.

Read the whole interview here.

February 2, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Tales from the Oubliette: Full time writer, one month in…

This is what my oubliette looks like… No, seriously. I’m not just sitting in my living room writing my book most days, or taking the laptop to bed…

So, it’s been a month since I got my grant. A month of being a full time writer. This has been a completely new experience for me: I’m used to holding down at least three contracts at once, working on my PhD and cramming my writing in on the side. So to have time… Well, it’s been awesome and also a challenge.

The first week of January was a complete write-off. I wrote about four versions of the book’s first chapter, all of which totally sucked, until I finally managed to come up with something I could live with. Some days I’ve achieved as little as 300 words, other days I’ve done over 2,500. I’ve tried to keep the weekends free, but have wound up writing on most days regardless.

All told, this month (well, three weeks) has earned me 26,971 words and The Familiar is well under way! If I can maintain my tortoise pace and make myself comfortable in my gorgeous oubliette, I should have a first draft by May/June… which will give me a couple MUCH NEEDED months to rewrite, edit, delete any crap I’ve written thus far. This, too, is a new experience. I’m used to working on short stories. Agonising over every word. Getting every sentence, paragraph, scene just right before moving on so that, basically, the first draft is pretty much the final draft.

That is so not happening with this book, let me tell you.

Nevertheless, January = 26,971 words.

Woo hoo!

Let’s hope things keep clipping along like this in February!

January 31, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Tuesday Therapy: Being the Best Magpie

Jason Fischer is a fellow Adelaidean, harmonica-player, sometimes singer of undead camel songs, zombie aficionado, writer of rollicking stories, and all ’round hell of a nice guy. For this week’s Tuesday Therapy, Jason shares some advice that, really, I just adore. Writers as magpies: what a fantastic (and incredibly accurate) image…

Be the Best Magpie You Can Be. Collect shiny things wherever you go, and let them soak into your hindbrain. Read widely, woolgather often, and give yourself permission to fall down the rabbit hole of research. Look at cool maps and old books, watch odd docos, chat to interesting strangers. Having said this, keep only the shiniest of things, and discard everything else. Even the weirdest scrap of stuff can be an absolute game-changer. And above all, know when to climb *out* of the rabbit-hole and actually do some writing.

Jason attended the Clarion South writers workshop in 2007, and has been shortlisted in the Aurealis Awards, the Ditmar Awards, and the Australian Shadows Awards. He won the 2009 AHWA Short Story and the 2010 AHWA Flash Fiction Competitions, and is a winner of the Writers of the Future contest. Jason has stories in Dreaming Again, Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and Aurealis Magazine. His “After The World” series of zombie-apocalypse novellas are available from Black House Comics, and his fantasy novel “Tusk” is soon to be serialised in Terra Magazine. You can visit him online here.

January 31, 2012 | Categories: Tuesday Therapy, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

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