But It's a Dry Heat

Archive for the ‘Lessons Learned’ Category

Clumsy and Insane; What’s Not to Love?

Ask any horse owner for the defining characteristics of equines and they’ll likely say “accident prone” and “frequently paranoid.”

The second is a function of the horse’s position on the food chain, herbivore, aka, a carnivore’s happy meal. While the average horse is as likely to be eaten by a lion as I am to win the lottery, most equines retain an instinctive wariness of anything that smacks of predator. In the modern setting this might mean a black trashbag or a small child dressed in a Halloween costume (horse eating gnome).

Non-horsey folks, having seen movie horses who gallop without hesitation toward gunfire, think horses arrive, out-of-the-box, brave and cooperative.  Horses are smart and can be trained (desensitized) to tolerate all manner of scary things. Hollywood horses, because they have to carry expensive commodities–actors–are particularly bomb proof. But even a horse who’s utterly unfazed by gunfire, might come unglued at the sight of your grandma and her purple hat with the peacock feathers.

Writers really should take note of this. If your fictional equines are calm, tractable beasts of burden, you’re missing out on a prime opportunity to torture your characters.

Horses are also (more…)

In Which an Author Discovers Stinging Insects

After following the latest bouts of reviewer vs. author, it occured to me that the controversy is driven, in part, by the collision between one of the oldest professions and technology.

Storytelling vs. the Internet.

It reminds me of the fan fiction debates that flare up like the clap from time to time.

For those unfamiliar with the controversy(ies), here’s the run-down:

An author gets a bad review, usually from a blog or Goodreads. The author responds with an angry takedown of the review. More civil authors may accept the review by declaring it “not a review” and posting a definition of what constitutes a review. Others muster their friends, unleashing them on (more…)

A Woman’s Perogative

The average size for a home in the U.S., as of 2009, was 2700 square feet. Our little casa, at 1200, is a mite shy of average. It, along with a half dozen other houses in the neighborhood, was a builder’s concession to the notion of “affordable housing.”

As home for two humans and one large dog, Casa de Kirby doesn’t need to be a McMansion. Any issues with space are the result of a tendency toward packrat-ism that could easily be cured by a trip to the dump.

One exception. The dining room. Or the lack thereof. Events like Christmas dinner take place in a tiny corner of our tinier kitchen. When everyone is seated, getting stuff out of the fridge requires a hybrid game of Twister and Musical Chairs.

The attached garage, like everything else in (more…)

Half-Baked Leftovers and a Freebie

Free story. Free!

The problem with being a newbie writer, or even an old-bie writer, isn’t the absence of advice and information. For example, wanna know how to writer better dialogue? There’s a book for that. Or an “app.” Likely several. As well as numerous blog postings and articles available online and free.

Some of the advice out there is good; some possibly cooked up while shooting heroin.  But a bigger problem–for me anyway–was sorting out which of the good advice actually applied to me.

When I started writing my first novel, I was told that in order to break in, find an agent, etc., I had to first publish some short stories. In a rare fit of obedience, I dutifully cranked out a few short stories.

No writing is truly a waste of time. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. But writing short fiction, when short fiction isn’t your thing, is sort of like practicing the mambo when you really would rather dance ballet. It adds to your repertoire and builds skills. But it may ultimately be a distraction from what you should be doing.

So I wrote short stories. Most of them set in the world of The Improbable Child, aka, Regan O’Connell, aka, the milleue of The Music of Chaos. Most are fun, flawed, and not publishable. (I.e., no editor is going to pay me for my efforts.)

“Keep Away from Naked Flame” is in my humble opinion, one of my best stories. In fact, if I just kept waiting, and submitting, it would probably find the right market. But, instead, I’m going to pop it first rights cherry here and post it. It’s a funny story of yet another of Regan’s misadventures in diplomacy, accompanied by her best pal, Talis the dark elf.

Also under the new Extras section on this blog, I posted a couple of outtakes/cut scenes from The Music of Chaos. Both were deleted because they didn’t add much to the story. Think of them as the stuff, back when films were actually on “film,” the bits that ended up on the cutting room floor.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

We don’t need no steenkin’ repairmen. We’re Kirbys. Together, me ‘n my man have built a barn and an art studio, remodeled the kitchen, and converted a garage to a dining room.  Like a toddler who’s tied her shoes for the first time, we did it “all by ourselves.”

Unfortunately, in the absence of repairmen, our work force is reduced to one man and one small scrawny woman, meaning there isn’t much “heavy” in “lifting.”

The Discovery of Gravity
In the desert southwest, “air conditioning” is another way of saying “swamp cooler.”  Recently, there’s been a trend toward real air conditioning, but the majority of homes are still cooled by swamp coolers. Despite a simple design, the damn things never work right. At any given time, you can expect to see a neighbor on his roof, head buried in the cooler, curses echoing off the metal sides. Often, you’re that neighbor.

A few years back, our swamp cooler (more…)

Just Keep Clapping

Publish America is a crooked vanity publisher in sheep’s clothing. But that isn’t the point of this particular ramble.

This morning, I came upon this in the Publish America (PA) thread at Absolute Write. The commenter was responding to another commenter who asked if anyone had privately contacted any PA writers.

I’ve sent a few PMs via Facebook when I’ve seen some authors express dissatisfaction with PA or ask questions that won’t be answered honestly. (…)
Another author, on the other PA page, said the only choice was between 1. PA 2. expensive self-publishing 3. the major publishers, who wouldn’t look at work from unknown authors. When I explained about small presses, he said he would do some research, but then claimed small publishers like Ellora’s Cave were all vanity presses trolling Facebook to destroy PA.

In short, when confronted with the facts about PA, certain writers shove (more…)

There’s No Mystery; I Just Don’t Care

Alternate Title: “Why This Excerpt Sucks.”

PROLOGUE 

“They’re coming,” said Mary.  “They should be here tonight.”

“Tonight?” said Bob.  “That soon?  Can anything be done to stop them?”

“No. Nothing.”  Mary stared out the window, clutching her shawl around her shoulders. “It will be worse than before.”

“The last time they came, it was (more…)

The Internet Ate My Baby

“Careful what you say on the Internet,” whispers the nervous Nelly on an online forum, “An employer or an agent or editor might be listening.”

“Look,” says another, “Here’s a case where someone lost their job because of what they posted online.”

“I won’t buy a certain author’s book because of what she said about toasters,” says another with an imperious sniff.

“Oh-Noes!” cries the Greek chorus, “Beware! Beware! Beware!”

*Yes, this is me rolling my eyes back into my head. Lookie, gray matter!* No, it’s never a good idea to post nekkid pictures of yourself, or a detailed account of your cocaine-enhanced, (more…)

AWOL from the Battle of the Sexes

If men are from Mars, so too are women.

I periodically come across discussions regarding the depiction of men in romance novels, in particular, how men are written by female authors. The common concern is that the men aren’t “manly” enough, that they have been feminized (whatever that means).  Alternately, some female writers opine that men are mysterious beings who cannot be fathomed by the female mind.

This is big deal for some women writers.  They even take classes for insight into the male mind.

Which boggles my mostly female, but somewhat male mind.  Do these women know any men? Is the whole of (more…)

Clarity Counts

Here in New Mexico, the local schools use a program called Character Counts to uh, indoctrinate teach kids to be good little cogs in the machine how to play well with others. Whether or not this actually works is debatable. What has always struck me about Character Counts is how those words are essentially nonsense, word salad. Serious, what does “Character counts” mean?

Here’s where someone wearily says, “You know what it means.”

No, I don’t.  At least not absent the whole campaign that goes with the program.  “Character counts” what? Sheep? Cards?

Words do mean … stuff.  But meaning and clarity are a function of a whole bunch of other words.  One of the most common problems I see when critiquing stories over at Critters is a total lack of clarity.  Often this is because (more…)