Come see the new place!

I've got my own URL, and a web host, and an about page, and everything!

It's over at www.robertcroman.com. I'll be blogging over there for now, although if I get enough complaints about making people's heads pop, I may put the head-poppy stuff over here.

Of course, I'm still working on simul-posting, but the Ur-Goth hasn't found a good plug in for that yet.

REMEMBER! Fae Eye is available on the 1st, Road Mage is available on the 16th! Go, go, go, go, go and see! And buy them! There's a contest for a free Kindle! I may add another contest soon for some character based artwork! Really! I'm excited, I need to calm down before I run out of exclamation points!

Six days, ~2000 words

Six more days until Fae Eye is out! I saw the galleys today, I'm bursting with excitement.

Ok, that sounded incredibly corny to me, and I said it. Still, it's not untrue.

In other news, Crowbar Girl is now at 75,000 words. Added another 1980 words today, which looks to be about how many I'm doing a day when I really get into it. I'd do more, but I don't seem to really hit my stride until about an hour after the kids are in bed.

Anyone else out there a writer with kids? I'm curious.

Pessimism as a Coping Mechanism

I've been getting advice from PJ lately about social media, and one of her comments was that she knew I was going to be published soon, so she was pushing me to go out and make connections.

I realized just today why I hadn't. I've been 'on the cusp' of being published for around five years. Worse, I seem to have started there. I've never received a form rejection from a publisher, and over half of the non-form rejections had suggestions, edits, and encouragement tacked on. I've been told that those are Really Good Signs. Almost There signs. Things that tell you you've almost made it.

With that in mind, around five years ago I went out and did just what PJ is talking about. Lurked on writing and publishing sites, commented cogently when I could, built up an online presence, such as it was. Then... Nothing. For five years, over and over, the same kind of responses. Tried for an agent, got similar responses. 'Great work, but not what we're looking for.' 'Really, really cool and well written, but didn't quite grab us enough.'

After a while, I wrote off the 'cusp of being published' as wishful thinking. Note; I didn't stop writing or submitting. On the contrary, I actively looked for venues and honed my craft. I improved; I can see problems with my earlier stories, I can improve them now. But all my writing time was taken away from work time, kid time, wife time and sleeping time. I wound up dropping the net-presence in favor of writing more, writing better, writing faster.

The whole time, five years, there was NO progress. I kept getting the same type of rejections. Part of the problem, I'm convinced, was the lack of rote rejections prior; if you're aiming at 10, and your first effort is '1', the next is '2', and the next is '3', you become convinced that you can hit '10' if you put in enough work. I started at '9' and saw a vague wobble between '9' and '8' (with one notable dip to '7') for five years. Very discouraging. By this past summer, I had hit a state where the only way I could cope was to tell myself that 'of course I'll get a rejection, but at least the feedback will be helpful'.

Then? Decadent. BOOM, published. It... Stunned me. A lot.

So, yeah. I'm still a little stunned. But I'm heeding PJ's advice as quick as I can.

Writing tips, because I apparently do not suck ;-)

It's been pointed out to me recently that I write rather a lot, in the 'many words in a short time' sense. At the same time, others have pointed out that the stuff that I write is actually relatively good from a grammar / spelling / typo point of view. (Thanks to fellow author Maynely a Mystery and editor Kate Richards respectively for the compliments!) The second means I'm not just getting hypergraphia of the keyboard in the first, and Maynely asked for a few tips, and I realized that there ARE some things I've picked up, so here goes...

A quick note before I start - these are in no particular order. There is no 'Silver Bullet'. Every person who sets out to write has challenges; any of these tips may overcome any particular challenge, or none of them may overcome the particular challenge you're facing at the moment. tl;dr, ymmv. Some I've come up with on my own, some I've distilled from others, some I've stolen entire.

- In the words of Mr. Spann, 'perfection is something made up to scare people'. Don't be intimidated. If you can't find the perfect word, put some wrong ones on the page. If the ideas behind them are good, those ideas will shine through anyway. I can't count the number of pages where I was disappointed by some prose, but other people were wowed.

- Writing every day makes your word count go up. I found out during NaNoWriMo that my average word count per hour goes up drastically when I'm writing every day. Instead of spending time fooling about, I put words on the page. OK, I still fool about, but the fool about to writing ratio gets better.

- Distractions are fine as long as you keep getting back to the writing. Sitting down with NO distractions might be an interesting idea, but it's both hard to manage and if you're not 'in the zone' leave you nothing to spark your creativity. Have some toys nearby, electronic or otherwise. Try to avoid mentally intensive chores, but physical ones are ok unless they're all-day, no-break items. Laundry is good if you use machines. Type 30 minutes, cycle laundry, rinse and repeat.

- Avoid physical writing distractions. I'm working with a very sticky keyboard right now, and it's dropping my writing speed by about 25-45%. Mostly due to the space bar requiring a serious MASH to detect a space bar stroke. Any type of ergonomic or physical distraction needs to GO.

- Plot things out beforehand. My fellow NaNo writers tend to sit down and write. Because of that, they have NO idea where their plots are going, which means they write themselves into corners. A lot. They complain of writer's block. A lot. And they can't get started. A lot. You don't even really need anything formal. I was reading this fabulous interview with Ted Chiang today, and I work similarly to the way he does; I have all the key scenes in my head before I start. If you have those, it's just a matter of hooking them together. Note that key scenes are typically big, important, 'if the movie doesn't have this the fans will riot' scenes. They aren't usually deathless prose, because the ideas in them are so strong.

- Practice active writing meditation with multimedia support. OK, that sounds like marketing jargon, but it's not. When you can't be writing because, say, your hands are full of a car steering wheel, but you aren't mentally engaged because, say, you drive this route every day five days a week, think about your story. Those key scenes? Play them in that little mental movie theater. Same with good dialogue. Same with plotlines. Workouts are another great time for this. The 'multimedia' part is simple; get music that puts you in the right mood for the story and play it while pondering, then play it when you sit down to write. It will help you get back in the same head space as you were when all those good ideas came to you.

OK, that's about it for now. I've got to get the kids to bed, work out and get some more words on the page tonight (possible marathon tonight / tomorrow). Hope some or all of this helps!

Crowbar Girl Update & Surprise Writing

Wrote another 2300 words done on Crowbar Girl tonight. Also, finally got to the point after which everything is fairly tightly plotted out.

What's really odd is that I was sitting there writing tonight, wondering when I'd GET to that point, when all of a sudden I could hear one of my characters (Mary, of all people) saying 'um, HELLO!. Very, very odd. I normally enjoy writing those scenes so much that I can't miss when I get there.

Anywho. Soon as I'm done this, I think What Not To Fear is next.

Also, August 1st! Remember, August 1st at www.decadentpublishing.com! Fae Eye for the Golem Guy!

PJ Interview!

One of my fellow authors at Decadent, and another author debuting on the 1st, PJ Schnyder, was intereviewed by Wicked Pixie. Check it out!

It's official!

I've sold one of my stories (a romantic comedy novella) to Decadent Publishing. It's a new imprint, I'll be part of their starting lineup.

Woot!

Woot, I say!

Writing contest thingy

Just entered a writing contest. Might get me a critique on my first 10 pages. Might help.

Rejected Again

I said it in this post, and I'll say it again; I need an editor. I just got another rejection, this time to a pair of linked stories submitted to a paired anthology. I got some very nice feedback with the rejection, again implying that my writing is right on that cusp of being publishable. Really, I wonder if I'm actually just sumbitting to the wrong places. IF that's the case, what I need is an agent, not an editor, since the job of an agent is knowing which markets are right for which works.

The reason for my thoughts on agents is the following, quoted from the rejection:

"This anthology is not the right home for 'Road Mage,' but I am sure you will find one not too long from now"

Am I completely off base in saying that quote implies that my only problem is choice of market, not quality of writing?

I sympathize with Inigo

I hate waiting. Whether it's waiting for something to come in the mail, or waiting for a response on a submission, or waiting for... anything, really. I'm just not a naturally patient person. Then again, that lack of patience could just be a learned response. For most of my life, lack of response has meant 'no'.

I believe, quite firmly, in the principles of personal responsibility and free will. However, I wonder how much of each of our personalities, proclivities, and decisions are based or influenced by our subconscious memory of past experience rather than our conscious decisions. The problem with the subconscious, of course, is that it has no discretion, and conflates things terribly. In the example above, some people repeatedly used lack of communication to communicate 'no', and now my subconscious feels that any lack of communication means 'no'. That leads me to feel I should act as if I've received a 'no' response when I haven't actually had a response.

As a student of human nature, I'm curious about this because it affects how humans act. As a writer, I'm curious about this because to provide versimilitude (yes, I use that word in casual conversation, Matt) characters must act realistically. If the type of conditioning implied above is real, that includes responding to situations not as the situation requires, but as previous situations have conditioned them to respond.

No conclusions today, just food for thought.

Communication

A thought on communication;

Assume that silence will be taken as negative. It almost always is taken so, even if it's rarely intended so.

Whoa

This weekend I set a new high for endorphin rushes due to compliments on my writing.

For those of you who are keeping score, the first compliment that really set my feet on the path to becoming a writer was back in 07. One of the Barflies on the Baen forums posted that he put down the latest Weber release to read my most recent snippet.

The second shot of squee was roughly two years after that, when the chief slush reader at Baen took the time to send me a critique and tell me they'd like to see it again. The third shot was last fall, when an agent sent me an email saying she'd agonized for nearly a year over my first book.

The second and third shots were based on the fact that professionals in the industry thought I had something good. Maybe not good enough, but very, very close. I still remember that first time though, when a complete random told me 'hey, this is good!'. I got another shot close to that this weekend. The person wasn't a complete random, but the circumstance scoured away any thoughts of 'he's just saying it because I'm a friend'.

I have a friend who, despite being well read, doesn't read science fiction. When he heard I wrote a book, he asked for a copy. He told me science fiction wasn't his thing, but he'd give it a shot.

Didn't. The operative word for whether he reads Sci Fi or not is 'didn't'. He does now, because of my novel.

Some things just make you wanna go 'whoa' like a stunned Keanu Reeves.

Despair; Toxicity and Tolerance

I had an interesting thought, one that I've been mulling over for a few weeks consciously, and have probably had echoing around in my skull for a few years (or more) now subconsciously.

Despair is a toxic substance. Like any other toxic substance, it generally doesn't kill by massive trauma, but by slow degradation. Like any other toxic substance, removing the source can prevent further accumulation. Even without further accumulation, unless the individual has a way to metabolize and expel the toxin the damage will continue. Finally, even once the toxin is removed from the individual, the damage may be permanent.

Now, those gloomy thoughts aren't all that I've been thinking about. There are quite a few toxic substances that can be tolerated. This doesn't mean that an individual can consume them without harm. It means an individual can continue functioning and even learn to thrive even while imparied by the substance. It's even possible for individuals to learn to tolerate toxicity levels that would kill unacclimated individuals outright. Despair, I've found, really is one of those.

There are desperate situations where observers are convinced that no one can survive. However, for individuals acclimated to immersion in despair, those situations are survivable simply because the pain of despair has become a background noise. Once that happens, it loses a great deal of its power. At that point, and likely only at that point, progress can be made toward removing the causes of despair.

I suppose this has all just been a longwinded way of saying that there is nothing more powerful than someone with nothing left to lose. Of course, in thinking about it, what might be even more powerful is someone who has become inured to loss itself. Someone with nothing left to lose can still be stymied by being given something to lose. Someone who has accepted that loss happens and moved past that realization is even more powerful; when they're given something, instead of fearing having it taken away, they enjoy it or use it to the fullest.

No real conclusion here, just thinking about situations I've experienced and seen.

I need an editor

Right now, I've gotten more 'This has promise' / 'This is really good except for' / and 'I almost, but no...' on my MS than I can quickly count. Almost all of them were non-form letters from people who normally use form letters.

At the same time, every non-editor / non-publisher / non-agent / non-purchaser who reads it has a list of 'change this! and it will be saleable!' items. Trouble is, very few times have the items been the same.

Very frustrating; if I change too much, I am more likely to fall out of publishing contention than to succeed. If I change nothing, I'm likely to stay in the unpublished valley. I need to change some small part, but without an editor I'm really struggling to figure out which part.

OK, back to class.

I write this, even knowing there's a slight chance he'll read it...

OK, for those of you who are unaware of why November's posting has been more anemic than usual, it's because November is NaNoWriMo. Almost all of my wordingyness is dedicated to that; I go elsewhere only when my hands hurt, or I'm so tired my brain won't fire right to type. Since essaying takes more than knee jerk reactions, I can't really do any in November. Well, unless someone asks really, really nicely.

However, as noted with my last post, sometimes something just HAS to come out.

Now, on top of NaNo, which makes sure I put out at least 50,000 new words once a year (inertia usually gets me another 50K before I slow down and start editing) I'm at Philcon due to the kindness of a friend. It's a very good opportunity to meet people in the publishing industry, which is a Good Thing for a variety of reasons I'll not go into here. Because a geek button got pushed. Which is odd, because I don't HAVE many, y'see.

So, I go to a panel for sci-fi newbies, because there are huge swaths of 'classic, everyone must read this' sci fi and fantasy that I've never read. My entry point into sci fi, y'see, was not magazines with stories, nor novels, nor even the considered-slightly-different TV shows of Star Trek and Doctor Who. Most authors who are my age write one of those as their entry point. My entry point into Sci Fi, y'see, was slightly different. It had Russian music and Japanese Animation and a really bad English script. Yes, I'm talking about Star Blazers. I watched it while reading Tolkien, back when my sister was still a baby and Carter was still president.

So it's not real surprising that my writing reminds some of Kurosawa does Anime. However, this is all a massive digression, because my geek out is embarrassing me. Ok, last person on the panel is Michael Swanwick. Now, I link to that list for an important reason, which I shall get to when my geeking out level drops a bit. Mr. Swanwick mentioned one of his books during the panel, but I'd not read the one mentioned. When I saw him, I remembered him from the "Where I Write" project.

Well, I talked with him a bit after the panel, mostly about being from an odd sci-fi entry point. He thought that was kind of neat, and a bit later during a "meet the pros" mixer I met Kyle Cassidy, who is the guy doing Where I Write, which is cool. Mr. Swanwick was there again, and had some very encouraging things to say about the feedback I've gotten from publishers and agents, as well as giving me some satori-moment-inducing advice on writing and pruning.

OK, I'm stalling again. In my defense, and since he said he has the same problem, perhaps he'll understand. I don't remember names. I took a notebook to Philcon with me specifically to write down names in, because I don't rememeber them.

The whole point here - I recall exactly ONE book I've read cover to cover twice in a row. I'll get to that in a bit. I know, I'm stalling. I'm Syndrome at the moment, ok?

Anyhow, I get home, sit down to write a little, and decide "y'know, I ought go look him up; perhaps I've read something of his and don't remember. He sounded very cool, perhaps I ought try out his writing; I'll certainly be trying the books he recommended." I go to his website. I go to his bibliography. Bones of the Earth, new one he mentioned during the panel, haven't read. Griffin's Egg, I've heard of, but don't think I read. In The Drift, don't remember the title, and book titles I remember (go figure, I forget my own name at times, but I can remember titles).

Iron Dragon's Daughter.

HOLY . There are authors I would like to and think I can someday match style-and-quality wise. Adams, Ringo, Jordan. There are authors I've been compared to, who I like, so I don't mind if I wind up more like them when I hone my skill to publishable levels (Cherryh). But Iron Dragon's Daughter is just way beyond anything I could write. I can't write that well. I just... I don't think I can. I mean, in part it's the prose, which is beautiful while still flowing quickly, but in part it's the story. When I try to do '10 words or less' on Iron Dragon's Daughter my brain just kinda short circuits. Um... OK, I just tried, and I can't name all the major components of the story in 10 words, and it's ALL 'surprising yet inevitable'.

And I got advice from him. And he gave me encouragement.

Definite Syndrome moment. "I'm still geekin' out about it!"

I'm sorry, it won't stay in my head...

If Christ is the Lamb of God, wouldn't that mean you're supposed to serve communion with Holy Mint Jelly?

Axes, Leaks, and Loops.

It's been a bit since I promised those posts. I've recently started teaching, and got the job and the cirriculum at the last minute. Coming up with my lesson plans, getting them posted to the district website, marking papers, all of these have been a little time consuming. But the operative part of all that is I've got a job now. One that might even let me write on occasion. Going forward I'm going to try for something modest - one a month, essay wise. I'll probably post a bit more often just griping, but I can't be sure how often I need to gripe, so...

At any rate, I recently had a chance to reread three essays which influenced my thinking. Individually, they're influential. Read together, they interact in interesting ways.

The first one, and one that I only recently found for the first time, is Polsky's essay on Leaky Abstractions. It's worth a read, but if you're short on time, I'll sum up the pertinent points. Any model we make of reality is going to be imperfect. Mental models used to ease interaction with reality, abstractions, are no exception to this general rule. When abstractions are different to the subjects they're modeling, they 'leak' at the points of difference. A common maxim about this idea is that you mustn't push an analogy too far.

The next essay that I've reread recently is about an abstraction which is more leak than not. Pournelle's Political Axes describes the failures of the false Right / Left political dichotomy fairly well. It also points out a better way of examining political positions, by plotting each person or group based on a pair of unrelated but demonstratable values. Effectively, to refer back to leaky abstractions, he points out the leaks in the Left / Right dichotomy, then suggests a far less leaky alternative.

The final essay... Actually, I'm lying. It's not an essay, it's a series of nigh incomprehensible PowerPoint presentations, which have some supporting documentation. At any rate, the final thing that I reread recently was a synopsis of Boyd's OODA Loop. Now, the Wiki isn't the synopsis I read, but it's a fair synopsis itself, and I can't find the one I read. The OODA loop describes all human cognition. We take in informatin (Observe), we assign meaning to the facts we have gathered (Orient), we ascertain the correct action (Decide) and then we Act. One way in which human beings can 'short circuit' is to 'get inside their own OODA loop'.

That last is described in the Wiki, but I'll summarize. When you can cycle through that whole process fast enough that your opponent is still Orienting, he has to re-Observe to account for your new Action, then re-Orient. Meanwhile, you're cycling again. This often creates a state of confusion and demoralization in an opponent. That is known as 'getting inside an opponent's OODA loop'.

Now, the longest part of the loop is the Orientation phase. What the training of certain military organizations (including the USMC) tries to do is to shorten that Orientation phase to near nil for combat operations. Soldiers and Marines are trained in the appropriate response to any given situation, until recognizing the situation (Orientation) happens on a split-second, subconscious basis, and the Action occurs primarily from 'muscle memory'. Against any opponent who is not trained in the same fashion, this will do exactly what you'd expect. The opponent is caught in a continual state of Orientation, at least until the Soldier or Marine has a chance to Do Unto Them.

The related concept of 'getting inside your own OODA loop' is a Bad Thing. In short, it involves extending your Orientation phase until the likelihood of completing Orientation before the environment changes of its own accord. Once Orientation is that long, reaction is the only option, and even those reactions will typically be slow in coming. One major cause of slow Orientation times has been identified; if a person's worldview is skewed from reality, that persons Orientation phase will be extended when dealing with the periphery of the skew. The nexus of the skew is frequently exempt; the center of the skew is usually a dearly held religious, political, or personal belief. At any rate, the Orientation phase can be extended long enough for a person or organization to 'get inside it's own OODA loop'. When that happens, stagnation or fragmentation is often the result.

Now, put those all together. As Polsky explains, a perniciously leaky abstraction is never going to be a realistic model of the world. As Pournelle points out, the Left / Right dichotomy is more leak than model. Finally, Boyd informs us that a worldview skew from reality will eventually cause a person to become incapable of effective decision making and hence effective action.

With that in mind, is it any wonder our government is so unable to get anything done?

Quick Thought

A note for businesspeople of all stripes. Actually, a note for people of all stripes, public or private sector.

If you are doing something that makes you say "If word of this got out, my reputation would be ruined." maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place?

A conversation I just had...

"The contents of the dishwasher are dirty."

"Coincidentally, so are most of my thoughts at the moment."

"So you can just stick anything in there."

"Coincidentally,"

"Don't even go there."

I've had comments about the dialogue in my books that 'people don't talk like that'. Funny, half of the dialogue in my books is lifted more or less whole from conversations I've had.

How my mind works...

I'm perverse.

Now, you may all realize this. The folks following my blog probably do. If anyone ever winds up coming here who doesn't know me all that well, they may not get the point, so I'll have to spell it out. For those of you who were already aware, my apologies, I'll at least try to keep it entertaining.

When I say perverse, I mean perverse, not perverted. Not saying the latter is a bad thing, or even that I'm not, but that's not the point of this here diatribe. When I say I'm perverse, I mean that my interest in doing something is inversely proportional to the difficulty. If someone says 'come on, this will be fun, it's easy', I have no real interest in whatever activity they're endorsing, other than a possible basic interest in the scenery or terrain. If someone says 'don't even try that, it's impossible', my interest is peaked.

Now, there are some caveats. While I'm mildly attracted to gambling, I'm not really pulled to things like keno or Powerball (although I'll play the latter if the EV is close to positive). My definition of 'difficult' is not based on artificially generated odds. When I think 'difficult', I'm thinking about something that requires a great deal of skill, endurance, or personal effort to succeed. Marathons intrigue me. Games of skill will forever hold my interest. One of the attractions of writing is that while it's easy to do, it's hard to do right. Anyone can type words (or at least semi-coherent letter groupings) on a page; stringing words together so a reader is intoxicated and enlightened is hard. Doing so on a regular basis is an ongoing challenge that I can't walk away from.

I even know where it comes from, after a fashion. The root has to do with the juxtaposition of being a very bright and literal child and having parents given to particularly bad metaphor and hyperbole.

At any rate, what spawned this whole commentary lies here. Specifically the entry for the 18th, wherein Patrick reports that even the best of handshakes must fall far short of passionate.

Thanks, Patrick. Now I've got an unquenchable desire to write a passionate handshake. And I don't even have a story appropriate for such a thing.