“Write what you know.”

Do they still tell you that? (“They” being those nebulous Authorities, who always somehow know your business better [...]]]> Since I am in a … curmudgeonly mood today, what with this thing and that other thing, I’ll just go ahead and whack on a chunk of Accepted Wisdom from when I was a tad.

“Write what you know.”

Do they still tell you that? (“They” being those nebulous Authorities, who always somehow know your business better than you do.)

Yeah. Great idea. Thanks to that brainstorm, when I was coming up, back in the 1960s and early ’70s, mainstream (i.e., critically approved) American Literature was dominated by ennui and impotence.

There’re reasons I’d rather pound nails into my kneecaps with  a tack hammer than read Lit’rature.

The actual, sensible objection to this dictum (I admitted being curmudgeonly today – go back up and reread the opening sentence!) is that it is a clear violation of one of my Iron Laws of Writing. Specifically -

The Second Iron Law of Writing: One Size Never Fits All.

And yet, even in that steaming pile of regnant idiocy, there nestles a diamond of truth. And I’m gonna fish it out for you. (You’re welcome for the visual.)

The real problem with it is that – again, back in my day, when dinosaurs roamed the mighty land Pangaea (which may account for my fondness for ‘em:  nostalgia!) – academics, for all their reflex sneering at “formula” fiction, were obsessed with finding ways to reduce creative writing, as well as criticism of it, to a formula. To eliminate all that scary, hard critical thinking. And especially the creativity.

Seriously. We were inundated in books and articles whose gist was, “if a story has A and B and C, it is a good story. If it lacks any of these elements, it is not a good story, and you are a bad person if you like it.”

Ahem. Back to that elusive nugget of truth. In the, you know. Pile.

It is good to know whereof you write. No shit. If your story concerns important details on, say, firearms, it’s good to know at least a bit about them. In at least as much detail as you go into in your tale. Maybe even just a wee bit more.

(And, yeah, mea freakin’ culpa. I need to get back to that project. I know. Life happened, people. It does. You know this.)

Let us say you’re writing a science fiction or fantasy yarn. You need to know about your world, yes? What’s the tech? What are the rules of magic? Is there air on your planet?

And let’s face it: the vast majority of good stories are at core about one thing: people. Characters. (Pop quiz, kiddies: why didn’t I say all stories? Right: Iron Law #2!) So you know about them, right?

Yeah. I know, right? We’re nerds. People are scary. But here’s a shot to the goodies of cold, hard truth: if you write about them, you certainly need to know something about them.

Cowboy or Cowgirl up, people. You can do this.

(I’m even told such knowledge can prove useful in other areas of life. Go figure!)

So indeed. It can be good to “write what you know.” It’s just when it becomes some kind of Revelation from On High, chiseled in stone in glowing letters, that it becomes Crappy Writing Advice.

Want my advice? Tough; you’re getting it anyway. Yeah, know what you’re writing about. Good plan.

But above all:

Write what you love.

As for me? Well, I know entertainment. So that’s what I try to write.

As for you? As always, thanks for reading!

Love, me.

First off, Lizzie Beth Frank kindly posted (and did) the following:

Which is was was sweet [...]]]> Time to thank a few good Facebook friends for helping out in getting word of The Dinosaur Lords and its online presence out to the world!

First off, Lizzie Beth Frank kindly posted (and did) the following:

In honor of the completion of Vic’s book, current profile pic is a fossilized dinosaur egg.

Which is was was sweet and actually touching … to say nothing of entirely cool.

Therefore, for her efforts above and beyond the call, I enroll her as the very first member of the Victor’s Dinosaur Army Legion of Merit! Congratulations, Lizzie Beth!

Sadly, enrollment in the Legion of Merit is the close equivalent of the old Marvel Comics No-Prize. (Yes, there’s a Wikipedia entry for it.) Still: recognition!

And the gratitude is genuine.

In similar vein, Honorable Mention goes out to my friend Joseph Lane for posting a link to the free preview of The Dinosaur Lords – and not just getting a bite, but a thanks from a satisfied link-clicker! Awesome, Joe – thank you.

And finally, thanks and an Honorable Mention to our very own Oliver Mellors – who might be familiar to you from comments to this blog – who also shared a link, and who’s been most assiduous about Liking the various new pages (plus, of course, the Adventurer’s Guide to the Dinosaurs of Paradise. Thanks, Oliver!

If you want to see the final, polished version of The Dinosaur Lords on the stands so that you too can read it – and if you want to know that you materially helped in making that happen – this is the way to go about it, my friends. I truly, deeply appreciate it – as I appreciate everybody who reads and comments on the posted chapters – and every one of my posts here.

A couple notes: being quick (which is just how you are) you’ll probably have noted a hiatus in posting of both new chapters and of new additions to Adventurer’s Guide to the Dinosaurs of Paradise. That’s because, in its usual unfeeling way, reality intruded – in the form of having to tend to matters such as writing on existing contracts (okay, that one’s not so bad) and in my getting a couple of really crummy nights’ sleep, which sorely depleted my resources.

Also I’m holding off on posting Chapter 03 for a bit until the existing pages have had a chance to permeate the Web mind a tad.

If you’re unusually quick, or possibly anal-retentive, you may have noticed I’ve retconned links to Wikipedia articles on various dinosaurs (and other critters) mentioned into the Prologue and Chapter 01.  I’ve not yet done so for Chapter 02 (beyond the heading) because … well, that’s a boatload of linking, candidly; see above.

And yes: there are indeed a very great many unearthly (or at least untimely) creatures mentioned in the book. The reason for that is that, well, those’re what live on Paradise. The book is, after all, not called The Modern Terrestrial Mammal Lords, because you wouldn’t want to read it, and I wouldn’t want to write it.

I mean, all respect to modern mammals and everything – some of my best friends and all – but dinosaurs are pretty much the point of the exercise. (Along with telling stirring adventure yarns about interesting characters, of course! We can’t forget that – and rest assured, I never do.)

Thus: The Adventurer’s Guide. And yes, in the fullness of time I shall post a whole gorram comprehensive compilation of all the damn dino descriptions.

Oh, and one more thing to consider – one reason you’re getting deluged with new dinos, some of which are liable to be a bit less than intimately familiar to you unless you’re even more dinosaur-obsessed than I am, is that the book’s just beginning. The bulk of them are naturally going to be introduced in the first part of the book. So the number of new and bewildering monsters will taper off considerably after a while.

So please, bear with me. And, of course – please keep reading.

And please keep spreading the word, my loyal and beloved Dinosaur Army!

Especially not, Gods forbid, a purple one.

Yeah, it’s trite. Also true. It’s hard.

So this is the task I’ve set myself. At least until next Sunday.

Of course it may seem strange to blog about it, since I’ve complained blogging is a lot like work. Since it involves. You know. Writing.

But [...]]]> Quick – don’t think of a rhinoceros!

Especially not, Gods forbid, a purple one.

Yeah, it’s trite. Also true. It’s hard.

So this is the task I’ve set myself. At least until next Sunday.

Of course it may seem strange to blog about it, since I’ve complained blogging is a lot like work. Since it involves. You know. Writing.

But it’s fiction writing I’ve committed not to think about for a whole week. And therein lies the problem.

It can be summed up simply: since I was a kid – certainly since I was in high school – I’ve thought about writing fiction almost every single day. The only exceptions I can call to mind were a very few when I was literally too sick to. Especially early last year, when for a time I basically couldn’t think at all.

What I’ve never – ever – done is deliberately try to refrain from writing. And, don’t you know, that’s one of the reasons I think it’s so important I do just that now.

As I announced to the world yesterday, with a Tyrannosaur Roar of joy and liberation that shook the entire state (allegedly), I just finished a writing project I’ve been writing at for just over eight and one-half years. I committed to it on my birthday, August 3rd, in 2002. And while this is, in the end, just a draft – it’s the draft I’m probably going to show to the world to sell the thing. So: kinda important.

And … I need a reset. A big, scary phase is about to commence: selling it – and making sure it, and I, don’t get short-changed. I am every scrap as committed to that as I was to writing (and then laboriously rewriting) the monster. Getting paid is a separate enterprise from making, and it’s an equally important skill. Whether we like it or not, it’s a fact, like the need to breathe air.

So I’m not thinking of that either. Not now.

The thing is … OK, what do I do with myself and this hyperactive head of mine? Yes, I’ve spent much of my 36-year career – way too much – contriving ways not to write. And only recently have I begun to make real substantial progress toward breaking that habit.

But avoiding the act of writing and avoiding thinking about writing are entirely different things.

So .. what do I do?

Well, there are maintenance tasks that I have, by choice, somewhat neglected the last few weeks. Since my holiday season has officially ended with the Superbowl, I can take down my Christmas decorations – although I find the colorful lights comforting, so, no hurry. The house needs a good cleaning, which thanks to my friends and various other circumstances I’m now able to do. I need a new tire for my car that does not require my surrendering in exchange a roughly analogous appendage from my own body. Plus … stuff.

Also, there’s walking. That’s suffered the last few weeks, although more due to persistent, minor health bugs, and our awful Arctic weather last week, than to preoccupation with my novel. Emma and I need to get out more, longer, and farther.

And … I need to do more stuff. Just in general. I need to practice freeing my perceptions and emotions from long self-imposed restrictions and just break out of routine. I’ve been chiseling away at these for weeks; now it’s time to hunt up a bigger hammer.

Plus some other things, like at last getting a new power source for my old but trusty desktop PC. Trying to use up some of the gift certificates friends have generously lavished on me before they expire (which prospect I find, candid, outright theft – but that’s for another time.) Learning, at long, last last, how to use my ultra-cool map-making software, Campaign Cartographer 3. Which, yes, I intend ultimately (and soon!) to use to create long-awaited maps for The Project of Which I May Neither Speak Nor Think (so you can quit whining any time now, Ian.) But I don’t have to think about it to learn to make freaking maps with the software.

One of the key lessons I need to learn (and for various reasons, which I expect I’ll elaborate on here in the fullness of time) is what I really want to do? What do I enjoy?

Well, other than writing – which I enjoy more than almost anything else I’ve ever done (use your imagination.) Important as that is to me, to belabor the blindingly obvious, it can’t and mustn’t be the whole of life.

So, that’s another thing to explore this week.

Right. Now to go and get a belated breakfast and start foraging around for that new tire.

Plus, you know. Living.

Go.

My answer? Why they hell not?

Reality: improved!

One of my major concerns as a writer [...]]]> Just got a Facebook message from a friend who asked if it was acceptable, in a story she was writing, to describe as a background detail a poster starring an actress in a real-world movie she in fact was never in.

My answer? Why they hell not?

Reality: improved!

One of my major concerns as a writer – or a reader, or watcher of movies and TV shows – has always been the willing suspension of disbelief. Indeed, getting kicked “out of frame” by something so overtly dumb even a kid (this being me) spotted it played a vital role in Why I Became a Writer in the First Damn Place.

And lately I’ve been thinking much on the willing suspension of disbelief, how a storyteller earns it – or doesn’t. Ironically, when I was in high school first exposed to the concept in English class, I resisted; it somehow offended me that it existed. And it strikes me that was precisely because of how much I valued it: I think it just struck me as a given that we all wanted the fiction to be real. Or that everybody valued it as much as I did.

(In fact I’ve been  thinking so much about SoD, let’s call it for convenience’s sake, so much, especially in the context of movies (wome which earn it, some which … don’t) that I’m going to address it when I finally buckle down and start doing my short podcasts on creating action/adventure entertainment. I’ve even set aside a YouTube channel for the purpose. Which I won’t bother linking to, since there’s nothing there yet. Soon. And I’ll let you know!)

So there are two foundations on which I base my entire craft.

I want the illusion to be as complete as possible.  In other words, I want to create- and earn – total willing suspension of the reader’s disbelief.

If it ain’t fun for me to write it, how can it be fun for you to read it? And conversely: the more fun it is for me to write, the more fun it’s liable to be for you to read. I will say that judging from reader reactions over the years, I succeed in inducing enjoyment in pretty direct proportion to how closely I hew to this principle.

One more factor plays here: all fiction is fantasy, no matter how mundane or banausic. We make up amusing lies for a living, people!

All of which informs the answer I gave my friend: go for it!

Admittedly I don’t write much fiction that doesn’t have a pretty overtly SF or fantasy cast. Even when I do, I find it helpful to regard myself as writing in an alternate universe. One whose gross details are the same as ours: same Presidents, same wars and stock market crashes, same bowl-game results.

But the little details – like who played in what movie – those are infinitely malleable.

What constitutes details minor enough to “fix”? Can’t be defined exactly. Although starring an actress in a lesser-known release seems to me to qualify. The key is, that’s not, especially as  a background detail like a movie poster, likely to kick anybody out of frame. It’s not like having Humphrey Bogart talking on a cell phone in The Maltese Falcon or anything. (And if any of my readers – my readers! – just went, “Huh? WTF’s wrong with that”:  Google. Google is your friend, my friend.)

Now, it may strike a certain knowledgeable percentage of readers as odd. They may jump right straight on over to IMDb to check out whether this is right or they are nuts. (Or is that just me? Again? I admit that I have no power over The Internet Movie Database.) And most of them will chuckle and shake their heads and say, “I see what you did there.”

And it if seriously torques them out of the story? And they blog about it? Controversy. Sells books, my friend. While it’s just ludicrously untrue that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, controversy of this intrinsically harmless sort can only help bring a creator much-needed recognition.

Now, major caveat: do not nothing that will bring down upon your head a plague of lawyers. That would suck.

But otherwise – knock yourself out. Have fun playing – and making stuff up. That’s why they call it fiction.

As I told my friend (who’s no doubt pleased I answered her much less verbosely): in this I think fiction writing’s like cooking: don’t the ones who do it best, season to their taste?

End note: treat yourself a major treat and bang on the image above to see the link. Or, if you’re too lazy to scroll up, right here. Seriously. That may merit a near-future post in itself. Check it out for now!

When I was in my early twenties and just getting started out trying to write a “real” novel – as opposed to the rather short porn novels I’d been writing – I found I had no idea what it felt like to write a full-length novel.

Forget the awful challenge of a blank page. This was [...]]]> Seriously.

When I was in my early twenties and just getting started out trying to write a “real” novel – as opposed to the rather short porn novels I’d been writing – I found I had no idea what it felt like to write a full-length novel.

Forget the awful challenge of a blank page. This was the awful challenge of a whole blank book.

That may strike you as strange or funny. Unless you’ve actually seriously sat down and tried to write a whole freakin’ book.

Am I right? You quickly find yourself asking, “Holy cow! How will I know where I am, writing this damned thing? How will I know when I’m done/finished? What am I doing here?”

Anybody? Just me? All right. Moving on…

The novel I was bent on writing was a Western, set in New Mexico Territory in the 1880s. Its hero was a Virginia-born veteran of the French Foreign Legion who went by the name of Random.

Now, I’d come to love the Western novels of a writer who went by the name Will Henry. They were exquisitely researched and beautifully written. They feature well-drawn characters in crisply-written action against well-described backdrops.

Which is what I’d devoted my professional life to writing. They also quite well captured the feel of the American Southwest. Something I know a certain amount about, having lived in it since I was seven. And yeah, I used to be an actual cowboy.

So I found a solution to get a feel of what it was like to write a full novel. And what it felt like to write a good novel – a Western, to boot (so to speak.)

I simply picked my favorite Will Henry novel, Chiricahua, and sat down to retype it. Every one of about 85,000 words, if I remember aright.

On my handy little portable manual typewriter.

And I did.

Now, this is not a “walked twelve miles to school every day, uphill both ways in blinding snow” yarn. I chose to do this. It was my own idea. I didn’t consult with anybody. Just decided, and did it.

I wasn’t trying to copy Henry’s style – although I figured anything I absorbed via osmosis would only help me become a better writer. I just reckoned the best way to know what a full-length novel felt like to write was to copy one out.

And … it worked.

In fact I did come out of it knowing what 85,000 words felt like. I believe I also did pick up a better feel for how to write a good novel. Only you can decide how well the latter succeeded.

Would I recommend it? No.

I mean, it’s not like my rapid weight-loss program where the answer to the question, Would I recommend it? is, Not just no: Hell no. I don’t think it’ll harm you or anything. It just, in retrospect, seems a trifle … drastic.

Do I regret doing it? Not at all.

The Western – my Western – was written, sold, and published originally by Doubleday as The Night Riders, under the pseudonym Keith Jarrod. It was subsequently reprinted in paperback by Dell. It got me an agent. It broke me into “legitimate” publishing.

Flash forward decades. Enter the Internet. (No, not that way. Eww.)

As I believe I’ve mentioned, I recently joined Facebook. Early on a freind mentioned she’d just rewatched a movie called MacKenna’s Gold. Which I’ve never seen, but knew was adapted from Will Henry’s novel of the same name, which I’d read. It wasn’t one of his best, but that’s still better than most.

Naturally, I headed promptly over the scope out the movie’s imdb page. (I have no power over imdb.) And right away I saw something puzzling: it’s first credit for Writers was “Heck Allen (novel).”

Wait, what? I knew Will Henry wrote MacKenna’s freaking Gold. The aftereffects of anesthetics and whatnot may still be playing tricks with my memories, but some things a man does not forget.

So I hit the link. First thing I see was how “Heck Allen was ‘Story Man’ (or ‘Gag Man’) for most of Tex Avery‘s best MGM cartoons from 1944 through 1955…” That’s, yes, Tex Avery the cartoon god. Heck Allen, it seems, also worked for Walter Lantz, the Woody Woodpecker guy.

When I was a kid I loved Woody Woodpecker, goony laugh and all. There were no flies on ol’ Tex, either. Can we possibly be talking about the same guy?

Yes. Yes we can.

Wikipedia reveals all: Heck Allen is Will Henry is a dude whose real name was Henry Wilson Allen.

(I need to reread Will Henry’s books one of these days, not to mention catch up on all the ones I’ve missed. Among other things I’ve been contemplating writing some more Westerns – possibly under the rubric of Steampunk, possibly as straight Westerns.)

And that, boys and girls, is the true story of how Tex Avery’s gag man taught me how to write a novel!

That’s perhaps the single most important truth I know about my writing. Because of my perfectionist tendencies it’s been the hardest one for me to learn to live by.

Learning to do so is probably the most important way I need to overcome my perfectionism.

I was reminded of this today. I’m well [...]]]> … once I’ve walked it.

That’s perhaps the single most important truth I know about my writing. Because of my perfectionist tendencies it’s been the hardest one for me to learn to live by.

Learning to do so is probably the most important way I need to overcome my perfectionism.

I was reminded of this today. I’m well into the rewrite of my epic fantasy novel, The Dinosaur Lords. I’m getting very near the point of – at last! – sending it forth to conquer the world.

And today I thought of a way to improve a significant secondary character.

Currently I call him Conde de la Montaña Azul, the Count of Blue Mountain. While he’s nominally on the side of the good guys, he’s an asshole. A fairly capable asshole. But definitely a legend in his own mind type.

So today it struck me: why not change his county to Montañadora, the Mountain of Gold? Have him be even vainer than he is, and obsessed with gilding everything?

It would only be more awesome. So guess what I’m gonna do?

His chief flunky is a count of lesser precedence, Estrella del Hierro: Count Ironstar. Yeah, we got a lot of metals-related fiefs going on here. Deal.

Besides, it strikes me there’s a cool metals-symbolism play here.

(Just by the by: don’t write me if the names, or anything else I quote from the novel, aren’t correct Spanish. It isn’t Spanish. It’s Spañol. Which is a dialect of Spanish, certainly. One whose correct spelling, grammar and usage is what I freaking say it is. And yes, there’s “Anglish,” too. Guess how it plays?)

And all of the above is only a roundabout route back to the Path I spoke of in the title.

What I mean when I say “I only know the path once I’ve walked it,” is that I don’t really know my characters, my background, and even my story until I’ve already written it. At least once.

One of my most lethal tendencies in writing is to get caught up in loops trying to get something right – a detail, a sequence of events, hell, even a sentence or a single word. And I get frustrated because I can’t see all possible ramifications of what I’m about to write.

Which in the past I’ve allowed to make me quit, out of sheer fear I couldn’t possibly get it right.

That old devil, perfectionism. Ably aided and abetted by my consuming vice, a lack of sense of self-worth. Except I suspect it’s the other way around, isn’t it?

In turn process has caused me an even greater problem: blowing deadlines. I stop myself up so much I get hopelessly behind. Then I have to rush ahead and finish. Now, ironically, my writing tends to get better when I do that. Because, of course, I’m no longer getting in my own way.

I’m too desperate to.

But the cost, along with the attendant woes such unprofessional behavior brings, is that, while it usually is good, it’s not as good as it could be. As I ram through the drafts I keep seeing ways the book could be vastly improved. But guess what? Can’t do ‘em. Got no time.

The flip of all this is, when I just put down any old thing and cruise ahead – and, yes, let go, let Leo – the right way, the beautiful and cool, way to do it, always comes to me.

Always.

So: Leo came through for me again today. Yay! And thanks, Personified Subconscious! Your rock!

And also: once again this vindicates my decision to write all of The Dinosaur Lords into presentable form before shopping it around. First, it avoided any unhappy deadline issues. And second – it was intended to enable me to get it right.

And I am. To the best of my knowledge and belief.

Get excited, people. I am.

And I am grateful for the lesson about the path, and following it to its end – and staying true to it.

===

In other tidings, today I got back in the swing of things.

Kettlebells, I mean.

I’m, slowly but I hope surely, getting into shape – walking as much as I can, doing various joint-mobilization and stretching exercises. Also trying to increase strength, especially core and upper-body strength. Which has its tricky aspects, because exerting force with my right arm still tends to cause nasty surgery-residue chest pains.

When I was in the hospital, I daydreamed about using my 36-pound kettlebell to get back into shape – get into shape, I should say. I have used it some, for deadlifts – and yes, 36 pounds is a mighty light deadlift, even for somebody as not-terribly-muscular as I. But it was … what I could do. Therefore what I needed.

I’ve been putting off doing the exercise called the swing. It’s risky to the old lower back if you don’t keep proper form. It’s also one of the most effective core exercises you can do.

Today I just said fuck it, went out in back, grabbed the kettlebell, and swung that sumbitch. Did about three reps. Then I noticed my form was slipping, and I was starting to lose control.

So I – let go. (That phrase again!) And once again – that’s the right thing to do. It’s why you do kettlebell exercises in the backyard, people, or elsewhere the floor isn’t easily breakable. And also, as with shooting, you need to be careful of your backstop. Because if you start to lose it, you just head that bad boy away from you and let it go.

Result: got a start. Very important. Hard to get anywhere without starting. And I was able to tell when things went pear-shaped, and react accordingly. So I got (hopefully) a little bit fitter. And I didn’t injure myself.

Things progress. I progress. This is good.

Life is good, actually. Especially considering the alternative. And, Brother, I have.