The Sci Fi Chick: Be it Wars or Trek, I love me some Stars

So this morning I woke up to another lovely review for New Earth 6
It had me squealing with girly glee because I am entering the six month mark for keeping the serial up and running. Though I am behind with some of the things I want to do with it, like finish edits for part 1 or hell, just keeping my universal translator up to date *I am so fail*, I have managed to meet my Friday deadline. Truth, I do spend a lot of my Fridays working all day on a chapter  but that is beside the point. *shhhh don't judge me*

However this review sparked an interesting debate/ internal revelation regarding my influences for New Earth 6. The review remarks how the piece has a Trekky feel. I giggled when I read that, but honestly I would be lying if I denied Star Trek's influence on my work. Most of my science fiction influence comes from watching Star Wars and Star Trek with my father. Confession time, I love both Wars and Trek, both have a hand in influencing my story telling style in different ways.

Star Wars I love for it's grand scale epic story telling. The over arching hero's journey, redemption of evil, corruption of good, rogue heroes, all wrapped up in a setting as medieval as it is technologically advanced. There is a lot on the line in the Star Wars Universe, the big bad is so very big, end of freedom in the galaxy kind of big and the good guys have the odds stacked against them, scrappers and underdogs the lot of them. Star Wars taught me no matter how far out there and wild your setting may be, if your characters are strong, they will pull the audience to the ends of the galaxy and back.

Then we come to Star Trek. *Side Note, I don't understand why trekkies get picked on more than star wars fans, for the love of sci fi, can't we all just get along?* Star Trek has a different medium of story telling than Star Wars. Yes both series have an ass load of books, but visually, Star Trek struts its story telling for Television audiences, and has an epic scale on its own in a very different way. The story telling style of Trek varies from series to series, not really developing a sense of an over arching story line until the beauty that is Deep Space Nine. But what Star Trek did do different was pull us into a multitude of alien cultures, down to a very intimate scale (okay yes, very intimate when it comes to Klingon mating rituals).

While the books of Star Wars take you more in depth to the universe, Star Trek's television medium allowed for an upfront display, creating worlds, cultures, people, some so detailed we learned their mythology. The cultures of Star Trek also resonate with cultures from our own history, though remain alien, different. Star Trek also has a special place in my heart, in particular Next Gen and DS9, because of the complex web of galactic politics and turmoil they weave, especially DS9. The Big Bads of the Star Trek universe are also diverse, bearing different motivations and resolutions. We are given examples of big bads who become close allies right alongside the terrifying unstoppable, irredeemable entities (oh Borg baby!).  I would say Star Trek taught me a lot about world building, and world building over time at that, the benefits of the slow build.

My influences don't stop there (*cough Firefly cough*). I have been a reader and watcher of sci fi and fantasy since I was a wee little lass. I find I have grown up to be a bit of a genre scrambler, weaving elements of several genres together in my work. New Earth Six is a sci fi setting, but there are hints of mythological fantasy, frontier western, and high adventure thrown in the mix, among others.

As a writer, I think it's important to acknowledge our influences. When someone enjoys your work, you need to give a nod to the shoulders you stand on, to the art which nurtured and fed the budding storyteller within, because someday, if things go your way, you could be the influence of someone else.

Holy Shit I'm 28: Birthday Retrospect

"I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one. So I got a cake."

Mitch Hedberg

I'm not a birthday person, haven't been since I lost a parent a month before I turned 8. Something about death sucks all the fun out of the party. Twenty years later, I still associate birthdays with an odd bitter resentment. It wasn't until the last few years my outlook has started to change to something not so angst ridden. I think I now view birthdays with the same thought process I view New Year's. Birthdays have become synonymous with new beginnings, a time to reflect on the road thus far. 

This year has been a doozy, it was around my last birthday I was trying to pluck up the courage to run my life off its current tracks. I was working in a job I enjoyed but had no real advancement opportunity. I still might have stayed, I was in a bookstore, in my element, but there was the constant whisper. I wasn't satisfied with what I was doing, and I had trouble finding the energy to write after a long day of slinging books and caring for kids. I needed a change. By the end of summer I sat down with my boss and told him I was leaving, probably the scariest decision of the past several years. I had a few ideas of how to help support the family but there were two big driving forces behind the decision. One, I wanted to spend more time home with my children, and two, I wanted to seriously pursue writing. 

By November, I left my job of three years, started my oldest son in an intensive preschool program, aaaaaaand sputtered about. I'm not going to lie, the first couple months without work, I was in a bad way. I did not write ferociously, I tried and failed to get back into grad school (long painful story there), I became horrendously depressed and addicted to video games. I attempted substitute teaching and discovered I hated it, being thrust into a situation where the kids don't know or respect you, don't care about what you have to say, and treat you like crap is a special kind of misery. I respect anyone who sticks it out long enough to become a full blown teacher, because that is one hell of a gauntlet to go through. I managed to pick up a small shift at a local bookstore, one day a week, but it was extra income, got me out of the house, and kept me immersed in what I loved. 

By February, my husband began not so subtly prodding me to get another job, something, anything. This was not my proudest time. I was becoming a full blown recluse, I made a few halfhearted attempts to find work, trying to find something I could stomach. And I began working on the writing again, slowly dragging myself back into the process, amazed how awesome it felt to do so. It was during this month of slowly dragging myself back to the realm of the living, an idea took root in my mind, something I never tried before, something I wanted to do, to force writing into the spotlight. It didn't happen overnight, I chewed over the idea for a month and change before I sat down and penned my first chapter of New Earth Six. 

The end of March/ beginning of April is where this year really began to turn around. Once New Earth Six was up and running, I made it a point to write every day. No matter how unmotivated I found myself, I tried to do something. Don't get me wrong, some days I still did nothing, but the writing came easier, ideas began flowing again, and I felt motivated to do things again, even reading a friend's novel to give feedback. If you didn't know already, that decision lead to one of the best changes of my current adult life and definitely the high point of my year, when the act of helping a friend blossomed into a new job, once which makes me feel fantastic, it feels right. The summer also found me attempting some big commitments, writing wise, with the Clarion Write A Thon and WeSerWriMo. The results of both have been surprising and unexpected. The end of this month will also see another first for me, a big one, one I have been working years towards. I will definitely be releasing one title, the (short maybe?) E-book of New Earth 6 Part 1 and possibly (cross your fingers) another title I have been working on this summer. 

When I was young I used to day dream of becoming an author. I used to fantasize how I would be one of the rare people who published before they left high school. Looking back, I laugh and laugh and laugh at that dream. Writing is hard work, it is also a continuously changing and growing creature. My writing now is nothing like it was in high school (thank the gods) but for the first time since I had those dreams, I'm so close to seeing them realized, though with a humble perspective of the writing business and with a bit more wisdom than my teenage self possessed. 

In tribute to my gaming addiction ;)

Science Fiction, Double Feature, Picture Show

Sometimes aspects of real life feel surreal. This past week has featured a couple moments of "did that just happen?"

 

Nose Candy:

Thursday morning began as a typical day. After a night of restless tossing and turning, I woke with the kids shortly after the sun crept over the horizon. By the time the husband came home from work, I'd already manned the fort for a couple hours, and begged him for a reprieve before he retreated to the room for the day. This is our dance. My sleeping habits have grown progressively off kilter as of late, leaving me to negotiate for naps with Captain Third Shift, but I digress. I passed out only to wake up to the unholy caterwauling of our eldest, Malcolm, accompanied by the husband roaring my name. Stumbling out, brain about forty paces behind the rest of me, I find them struggling in the living room, Malcolm screeching like a banshee, limbs flailing, while his doting father attempts to peer up his nose. Uh oh. This can't be good. What has happened? Malcolm, in a moment of sheer brilliance has inserted a small piece of candy up his left nostril. Candy we have vacuumed our treacherous carpet for several times, but the bastards keep squatting in those wily fibers. It took our son five years to shove something up his nose, but he chose a winner. The candy was so small we could not see it, or feel it, to extract it. A call to the pediatrician revealed they didn't want to deal with it either, which left....the ER. Balls.

There is nothing worse than sitting in the ER with my son. Between his cat like attention span, utter lack of patience and the zero entertainment options of the facility, my morning was hosed. How much did I dread this visit? Enough to reconsider when he calmed down on the way out to the car. "It's candy," I grumble to myself, "It'll dissolve." But no, the doctor has warned we don't want that going through his nasal passage. Off to the ER we go. After a quick stay in the waiting room, (yay) we are lead to a sparse sterile exam room. After coaxing Malcolm through the usual vitals check in, we are left to our own devices, for an hour. There is nothing to distract my darling boy in this room. We sing, we play a few clapping games, I make animal sounds for him to identify (I can't imagine what the nurses are thinking walking by this closed room). This eats up thirty minutes.

With an inward wince I hand over my cell phone, letting him play with some inane app, watching the battery life slowly drain away. I let my mind wander, keeping his hands off the various expensive machines clustered in the corners. A doctor finally enters.

Malcolm's calm is a lie. Within moments, we have banshee revisited, in stereo since noise bounces like a sound stage in here. Despite an RN and myself pinning him down, the doctor cannot locate the sugary culprit. Their recommendation? They ask me to plug his nostril and blow in his mouth, hoping to pop it out.

What? I feel like I'm being punk'd. With deep reservations I proceed to perform this technique, (did they learn this from Looney Toons?). Malcolm rewards my efforts with a slobbery reverb, blowing back, as I realize I didn't brush his teeth before taking off for the ER this morning. The bloody doctors are chuckling at me, asking if I want to try again. Yeah, thrilled to. Because I'm a masochist I close in to try again, rewarded by a writhing fit of giggles from my son. Zero point zero results.

"Well, can't see anything, it will have to come out on its own. Just watch for drainage."
I want to throttle the lot of them. I want to throttle the pediatrician for sending us on this fruitless time sink. I want to throttle them all over again as they leave me waiting for another hour before realizing they haven't discharged us....

I don't know if the pain or the four hour ER visit has engrained the lesson into Malcolm's head. The end result of our migraine inducing visit was a day fully frazzled and exhausted, another vacuuming session of our carpet "tan treachery", and some lovely colored snot a day later. (Blue, if you're wondering.)

Bad Religion:

My husband and his mother are fighting again. It has been a slow build, the kind where you can tell he grinds his teeth every time she opens her mouth. I have stood, poised between them, my feet on shaky ground for years now. Without the kids and my attempts to bolster some kind of relationship between the family, I wonder if he would have dealt with her at all. While both of them have individuals issues, my husband and I can usually talk through and solve the problems between us. The mother- in -law uses religion.

Disclaimer: Religion in general is one of those hot button topics. I have many opinions on the subject, but I am open minded when it comes to religion as a whole. Religion, itself, is not bad, it comes down to the individual. To me, religion is a guideline, a moral code to live by. I respect religion, I respect faith and beliefs, I will not tell you your faith is wrong, or sneer at your belief structure, and I expect the same courtesy in return. My relationship with "faith" as a concept is complicated and could fill a whole post on its own. I am gratified to have many excellent examples of religious people in my life, people who I respect for their faith and beliefs. Sadly my mother in law in not one of them.

Why? Here is spark which lit the five alarm fire:
She has refused to help watch the boys while my husband participates in his gaming activities because the gods in his game represent false idols and are trying to lead him astray, down the path to hell.

My husband tried, he listened to her view point. He tried to explain it was a fantasy game (legend of the five rings) and he does not believe these gods exist. He even took the approach of people worshipping various faiths around the world. Her response was unflattering to anyone not of the born again Christian faith. He argued it was fantasy, made up, not real, but she refused to budge from her stance. When he countered she reads fantasy, she responded with "only Christian authors."

We are big gamers in this household. We both play D&D with our circle of friends, various RPGS and video games. Now our relatively innocent lifestyle is being snubbed by a case of bad religion. I have trouble taking her serious. I am also pretty freaking insulted. Yes, my husband is going to be out of town for his nerd convention, but I asked her to watch our children so I could go to work, not flaunt my pagan ways with a rousing session of dungeon crawling, worshipping the God of Thieves. This development in her faith is unsettling and is a recent mutation. What's more disturbing than her off the wall judgment is she doesn't believe us when we tell her we don't believe in these fantastical false idols.

I find myself between a rock and a hard place. Is there a manual to deal with this? I do not want to shut my mother in law out of the lives of her grandchildren but do I want to expose them to this kind of behavior? The fact this whole zany issue has driven a wedge into our family is uncomfortable, as if my skin is too tight to breathe in. I still have trouble believing this argument was real, that someone actually thinks this way. I guess I shall go back to writing my speculative fiction and further cement my place in hell.

Well I shall just put this here then...

When not stringing together another NE6 chapter or editing "The Novel" I have spent an unhealthy amount of time traipsing the net.

Blogger seeking Network.

Dat's me.

It's a bit of a learn as you go process. I guess I could have bought some guide to attaining the internet audience, but I am cheap and it has been fun bumbling along on my own. Half the time I just stumble onto neat sites that have nothing to do with what I'm looking for. 

I guess the ye old proverb rings true even in the asinine environment of the internet.

"Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination." 

It has been a tricky search, something I don't know how to go about, but building a network is important, a survival tactic of the internet, you never know which site you throw up a profile on will be the site that gains you page traffic. The trick is to find as many places as possible to leave your mark. 

The internet is like a vast organism, a living breathing hive covering all pockets of the globe. There is no distance between people on the internet, you are tethered to a person halfway across the world on an electric signal. 

Courtesy of www.hungamapoint.com

How have we not eradicated cancer yet, we made the freaking internet!

In all seriousness, networking the sci fi blog has been frustrating, but it has also solidified my commitment to keeping it going. I hit 300 views yesterday, no a huge number, but it was enough for me to go "Squeeee!" followed by "Shit, I need to keep on top of this motha now." 

Armed with evidence my feeble attempts at networking are slowly but surely paying off, now I have to suck it up and learn to Tweet. 

"I want a castle" Reality vs. Daydreams

"He'd heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true." -Terry Pratchett

Growing up, my fantasies of adulthood centered on my status as "world famous author." I wanted to be the next Motha Fucken' Rowling. This fantasy probably burned its candle a lot longer than it should have, I mean I should have gotten a big enough dose of reality before hitting college but something happened in High School. I had a minor taste of success.
Through a university funded contest, I entered a novel in progress. It was incomplete, poorly edited, but I submitted it anyway. To my surprise, I won the county prize, $1000 and my first taste of being paid for my words. I did not win the state prize. But I did get some awesome praise from the judges who gave me these lovely ego inflating compliments. "I thought you were a man, your male protagonist was so convincing." (Dude, I swooned at that.)
Then there was college. We shall call this my wake up call. In college I was in a creative writing class with insanely talented people. I probably got off light on the "You were a big fish in a small pond" realization. College did do me a tremendous favor. It taught me becoming a writer is not an overnight success. There are not magical editing fairies to come fix your draft in the night. Until you are firmly established in your craft you will have to work to support yourself. The ratio of authors who just write for a living vs writers who have another job is probably somewhere in the 1:1000 ratio. Don't quote me, I am not a statistical person. It's probably more skewed than that.
Reality is, even if you publish your first novel, there are no guarantees it will be a success. Even if it is a success, it might not be enough of one to allow you to be a full time writer. Or that you will strike the same chord of success with your next book.
You need a fan base to support your work.
Where does that fan base come from? What spark ignites that sends people scrabbling after your book. It's not always quality. Sometimes its shock value or daring, in the case of E. L. James, taking her risque fan fiction to erotic new heights with 50 Shades of Grey. There lies the big question. How did she do it? Who's hands did that crazy book stumble into to create such a sensation?
Will I ever find the ignition spark?
As I grow older my daydreams have matured. While I secretly still want a Scottish castle, what I really want is to find my spark, to find a fan base who will be the foundation of my writing career.
Time to repeat the mantra: Type till your fingers bleed, don't give up, Just Keep Writing. 

Who do you work for!!!

Who do you write for?
Ok, at some point, every writer has to ask themselves this question.
Sometimes you have to ask it twice, because the first gut reaction is to defensively say "I write for myself."

Bull.

If you are writing with the intent to publish, you are seeking an audience. You are writing for the amusement and, hopefully, the admiration of others. And the audience is important, it's vital to your success. Like a snake charmer you need to hit the right notes to keep your audience captivated.
This does not mean you mold your entire story based on the whims of your audience because a) different things please different people and b) you can't please everybody.
I can't state that emphatically enough.
YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYBODY.
 For every 100 people who adore Harry Potter, there is someone going "Wizards are stupid."
But we don't egg their house because it's part of the job. Take the barbs for what they are, learn from the ones that give honest constructive criticism and ignore the "this is stupid" b.s. because hey, they don't have to like your story. They might prefer contemporary content, or historical. They will rave about the literary merit of Twilight, then turn around and sneer at Game of Thrones. Reverse that and it's still not entirely fair. Both books, no matter how you personally feel about them, had their own separate impact on the literary world. But I believe Martin, Rowling, and Meyers all wrote their stories with an audience in mind.
I know I do.
I know the general audience for a young adult novel is usually 2-3 years younger than your main protagonist. And while I spew everything onto the page in my first draft, this intent heavily influences my editing choices. My main protagonist is 16 at the beginning of the book, and while I have no illusions about teen sexuality, the romance is secondary to the character's journey of personal growth so I don't have to do too much dancing around the topic yet. However, in the next two books I have planned, this relationship deepens, it is something I will have to address when the time comes.
For now, I'm focusing on fine tuning my tale, making it readable, threading the loose ends together. I want to sell this book. It has been a labor intensive project for nearly four years. Writing while experiencing massive life transitions is tough. So, during those years, yes, I did write for myself. Sometimes that was the only answer that kept me writing. Now that a first draft is done the answer has altered somewhat.
"I write for myself, I edit it for my audience."

I am the God of this Universe! My P.O.V. identity crisis

When approaching a new piece, the first wall I run into is P.O.V, the dreaded point of view. There are so many aspects of a body of writing tied into P.O.V. The P.O.V. is the defining facet of how your audience views your characters and how your characters function in their world. It is also how you function as the writer of this world. Each choice comes with it's limitations and bonuses. Do you use first person, planting yourself into this world? Third person, where you are a voyeur into your character's most intimate secrets? Hell, you could even break the fourth wall, you are the god of this world, and you tell the story of your characters in an authoritative voice like the bards of old.

First person, I find, is perhaps the trickiest to pull off. It is very easy for a character to become the mouthpiece of the writer, a freer, looser, projection of themselves onto the page. This does not mean the story will not be good, and most first person stories absorb some aspect of the writer into them, their ideals, their snark, their dreams, or even their fears. The flip side of that coin is the writer who is lead by the character, dragged into their story, peering through a different set of eyes.
I have tried several times to write in first person, but it comes with a very big limitation that often clashes with my ideas for a piece. First person is just that, one person, the view point is filtered through one character's eyes. Many writers get around this, flipping the first person view to a different protagonist. This transition is handled a number of ways, the one I have seen the most being a chapter flip, where the author labels a chapter with the name of the speaker.

In my own work, I usually work in one of the tiers of third person, sometimes limited, sometimes omniscient. Third person comes with the luxury of hopping through multiple characters heads, though it is not always handled skillfully. In the many romances I have read, P.O.V. is like a tennis table match, you bounce between the male and female perspective constantly, sometimes on the same page. If you're lucky you might get a page break to indicate the perspective change, other times the tip off is usually pronoun change, or, my personal favorite, description of genitalia.

The hindrance of third person is it's a seductive drug. It's too easy to throw everything out there on the page, to reveal everything everyone is thinking all the time. But if you are in everyone's head at once, the story can become repetitive,  stagnant, and clogged up by too much inner thought. The more omniscient the P.O.V. is, the harder is it too keep secrets, tell lies, and trick your reader until your big reveal.

Right now I'm at war with myself of P.O.V. My work on the romance novel is moving at a crawl. Just when I think I've worked through my hang ups on sex scenes, I go get tangled up in the voice of the piece. It is very easy to write a romance in third person, not so much in first. But three chapters in, neither voice feels right. Third person comes off stale, while first person comes with it's own set of limitations. Perhaps I could do a combination of perspectives and P.O.V. styles. It's not a new idea. The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon uses this technique.

I need to stop sweating the small stuff. This is supposed to be a first draft, I keep losing that perspective. First drafts are the perfect platform for experimentation, they are your paint splattered creative studio while a final draft is the art show. I need to relax, loosen up, maybe drink a glass of wine before writing to let the words flow out.

Or perhaps it's another issue entirely. I am usually the god of my universe, not squatting in my main character's mind. It could be an issue of control, I'm finding it difficult to relinquish the reins of the story to my character, to let her lead the way. There is a taunt chain between us, I'm not sure what will happen when I set her loose. A glass of wine might be the cure after all to let someone else drive tonight.

Opportunity is a flasher that looks like Johnny Depp

This is my fantasy, therefore it's Mr. Depp, now shhh.

Like a flasher, Opportunity appears before you, shows you the good stuff before you realize what your seeing, then darts away, leaving you feeling shocked, a bit awed, perhaps, and completely disoriented. Did I just see that? I think I like it. Where the hell did it go?!
By the time you realize what an awesome sight you beheld Opportunity has moved on to flash the next unsuspecting customer, who might be faster on the uptake than you and flying tackle it. Oh, um, got caught up in my own simile, whoa.
Okay!
The real message here, seize opportunity when it comes flashing at your door. Right now it's the moment. My life is walking that tight line that happens when we are financially secure enough for me to pursue the 'life long dream'. I have to kick procrastination in the teeth, shove doubts out of the way, and pound motivation into myself to do this. The most over used excuse for failure is lack of trying. If you try to do what you want most in life, than you are already halfway to success.
Call this my motivational B.S. speech, everyone needs something like it, one time or another. Flasher Depp aside, fear of failure is a ten ton weight. People think writing is a risque career choice, but really, it has as many pitfalls as any other career track. You could fail to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, etc. just as easily. There are different factors at play but every venture, no matter how "secure" they are proposed to be, comes with risk.
Risk is just a part of life, plain and simple, so you have to overcome it. Strap on those knee pads and tackle Opportunity to the ground.

It's Hard to Write a Sex Scene While Giggling

Romance, ah the mysterious beast that is romance.
Yes, I believe it's basically porn for women, but that's why we like it. My own taste in romance runs towards monsters and mayhem, and I'm most likely not alone in that respect as these authors sell a lot of books.
I've been trying to write a romance for years. Don't knock it, Romance is probably the most forgiving genre to break into, and perhaps the easiest. People can be very choosy about their fiction, even genre fiction, but romance has a lot of wriggle room. Many authors who start in romance have splintered off into other genres. I may not like Nora Roberts's books but I respect the hell out of her for basically creating an entirely new personality with J.D. Robb.

It's not that I can't spin a romance plot line, the mechanics of a successful romance are pretty straight forward: No matter how bloody and broken, fucked up and misunderstood you become along the way, everyone gets their happy ever after. That's why you read romance, for that slice of impracticality. No story telling is not the things that trips me up.

It's the damn sex scenes. There may be dozens of slang for male genitalia, but most make me burst out laughing. I mean does "She gazed upon his one eyed monster" really strike the right cord in a romantic setting. To quote a friend of mine "sex is just sex". However trying to write about male genitalia has nothing on the lady parts. For me, 'pussy' is a jarring word. There are few settings it fits smoothly into but it's one of those slang that just gets tossed into the sexy salad in many a romance I've read. And I have to say, hearing the medieval knight/dragon/viking warrior/vamp whatever talk about her 'tight pussy' just doesn't mesh. Most of the time, it's appearance makes me roll my eyes. Since I dislike the word so much I hate using it in my own writing, but surprisingly it's even harder to find words to stand in for vagina that don't sound like a 15th century porn. Between descriptors of felines and plant matter, finding the right words for a sex scene can turn into an epic word search.

I wonder if Nora giggles when she writes her sex scenes.