Sadly, no.
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Nope!
Iām stuck on my next book again. However, I teach Womenās Self-Defence classes and Iāve decided to turn them into an online recorded course. So Iām writing quite a lot of that this week.
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Writing? What is that?
I have two short story titles.
Titles!
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Going to try and hit 25k words today (Iām at 21K right now). This part of the story will probably be cut in the final consideration, but itās helping me to write it first and then cut it later, I think.
Anyway. Tomorrow I want to be near at least 30K by the end of the day. Fingers crossedā¦ or, more accurately, fingers-on-keyboard, butt-in-chair.
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Absolutely not, no. Instead I wrote a Pathfinder supplement about playable fruit classes. I had a week of leave, but hopes of fiction writing didnāt pan out.
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Fruit classes?
Do I want to know?
So I am trying to convince myself to write a short story. The biggest challenge for me is to make the idea just the right size. Mostly that means small enough. My thoughts tend to go epic quickly. But I cannot even get started with a single sentence because I am overthinking it. (I could of course easily write a rant on boardgames for a couple 1000 words)
We got a subscription for Masterclass recently so I could watch a few writing classes. I am stuck on Neil Gaiman Episode 3 or 4 where he reminisces about how he finds ideasā¦ ā¦ ā¦ pfffftā¦ ā¦ ā¦ (<- my brain when I hear the word āideaā) so instead we have watched Chris Hadfield teach us Rocketry. Much less intimidating than writing.
I read Scalziās blog the other day where he says it has been one of his most unproductive years in ever. It made me feel a tiny bit better. (I am not a regular blog reader these daysā¦ just snippets here and there)
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Only you can answer that, butā¦ DriveThruRPG
Iāve seen lots of authors saying what a struggle this year has been. The tedium and constant low-level stress has really done a number on human creativity.
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Yeah, this last year has really been a struggle (Iām including the lead-in to 2021 in that). I booked my editor to work on my first novel this year back in February, when it seemed like I had lots of time to finish the bookā¦
I am starting to accept that I may not actually be done in time (April 1st). And that concerns meā¦ but what can I do? I just keep writing and hoping for the best, I suppose.
I am at 23K words today. As mentioned above, goal is 30K by the end of the day (and then 35K by the end of Wednesday, when I also have to create a Powerpoint presentation for a $6,000 proposal with the university Iām attending that I am 98% sure Iām not going to get).
āFunā.
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I sympathize with people who experience that; but I donāt seem to have much of it in my own experience, if any. Of course Iām not writing fiction; Iāve concluded that itās not my mĆ©tierāand I havenāt written verse in many years now. But I never have times when I canāt figure out how to run a session in an RPG campaign, or come up with ideas for campaigns, or write game books.
In one sense, my approach is less dependent on āinspirationā than I see other people talk about; I largely come up with things by starting out with an idea and working through its implications. But Iām not sure that makes what I do āuncreative.ā And in any case I have had the experience of having an idea come to me out of nowhere, while running a game, or on waking up, or while writing a passage for a book. I read long ago that Isaac Newton, asked how he came up with his theories, answered Diu noctuque incubando (āby brooding on them day and nightā) and thatās how I think about things Iām writing.
Iām lagging on my current GURPS project, but that reflects the stress of our unsatisfactory living situation and then of the move itself; Iāve come up with an idea for how to proceed with the final draft, and gotten it approved, and itās just waiting till I clear my desk of copy editing for a bit.
Anyway, my best wishes to those of you whose muses are quirkier; I hope they come back to you.
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just thought some of you might want this kind of encouragement 
I will write today. something. this promise I make myself. A prompt if all else fails.
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Iāve read just what I think is Scalziās first book. Old Manās War? It was an absolute mess and I donāt know how it got published. Does he get better later in his career?
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I usually get one hour a week to work on my book, on Saturday morning.
Last week I missed it because I was recovering from my first vaccine shot (yay). This week it got truncated to 45 minutes.
Spent the whole time refining a single conversation, and did not finish.But what I touched is better. Problem is (and this increasingly becomes a problem the deeper into editing I get), the story needs me to insert a specific point into the conversation. The characters donāt want to talk about that.
So Iām having an argument with two of my characters, trying to get them to touch on a subject that they just arenāt interested in this page.
sigh
I am not sure if Redshirts is older. In any case itās been many years since I read those books.
I remember liking them and and continuing on with the further books in the Old Manās War series. I read Forever War by Joe Haldemann around the same time which I enjoyed a lot. But same: it may not hold up.
I have read a lot more books since reading Old Manās War and it may well be that the book is a mess, I can neither confirm nor denyā¦
For what itās worth I really enjoyed Scalziās recent Interdependency trilogy. He is still not writing literary master pieces but he doesnāt have to to make his books enjoyable to me.
āBetterā. Thatās tricky. I think he gets more, not better. Like, if you like Scalziās early works, his later works are more refined and polished, but theyāre not radically different.
Sorta like the first three Discworld novels, which are a bit of a mess but you can see that the underlying DNA of the whole series is there. And it just gets more refined as Pratchett goes on.
That stated: Scalzi is not a āliterary masterpieceā kind of writer. Although he is an incredibly profitable, popular, and talented writer, he wonāt be for everyone (no writer is).
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Iāve managed all of 200 words for an SF mystery short story. But considering that I had nothingānot even the story seedāthis morning, itās better than what I had in the last two months. Itās about a robot gardener and an alien tree on a space station. (I may have used Roryās Story Cubes to get started)
Maybe after dinner Iāll get in more words.
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Refined might be all he needs. I found the first 75% of the book scattered between different genres and tones. He started out trying to write a āhard boiledā style, then switched to fourth-wall breaking satire, then sci-fi thriller, and I never knew what I was reading.
Plot/conflict too. Most of the book felt like wandering between not just styles but concepts and plots - like he was trying to figure out where he was going.
I also read it side-by-side with Timothy Zahnās Spinneret and was reeling from the gap between how the political-science of inter-species space politics was developed (or not). It was like warhammer vs. war and peace. That probably stays the same throughout his career.
To be fair, I thought the last quarter of the book had a consistency and pathos layered on top of a more coherent plot. That was the promising part, and left a question mark in my head if this was a book where he was just āfiguring things out.ā
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Iāve never looked at Old Manās War, but I picked up the sequel, The Ghost Brigades, from the San Diego city library. I didnāt even get halfway through. A friend back then told me that Scalzi was like Starship Troopers with the philosophical speeches left out; all I can say is that it must be the philosophical speeches that I liked in Starship Troopers (and itās far from my favorite Heinlein!).
Scalziās actual first book was Agent to the Stars, but Old Manās War was his first traditionally published book. I thought Agent to the Stars was more readable, and I was able to finish it, but itās really not the kind of comedy I prefer.
I actually canāt see that. Iāve read those three volumes, but none of them seemed like a Discworld book to me. The first two are collections of parodies, and Equal Rites seemed like halfway thereāfor one thing, its Granny Weatherwax isnāt the same character who appears in the later books. But then the fourth book, Mort, totally reads like a Discworld book to me. Itās less subtle and hasnāt the depth of some of the later books, but itās what you said, the underlying DNA of the whole series is there. Itās as if one of the Endless had taken him aside and made a little deal with him after Equal Rites . . . Or thatās how it struck me.
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Marx - I took the liberty of clicking through your links. What would you recommend if I wanted to support your work? Looks like Caitlin and Kingās Claw are the most read / best reviewed?
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Aw, thanks Acacia! Appreciate that!
Kingās Claw was my first (and still my best selling, but not by rateā¦ itās been around the longest, since 2016). Iām very proud of it, and itās probably my most ambitious work so far. If you like the old Tintin comics, itās an homage to those, set in space.
Caitlyn Morcos is one of my more recent ones, and I think itās better in many ways, but itās nowhere near as ambitious. A space-western-police-procedural (thinkā¦ Firefly meets CSI), and I think itās pretty good and has a great hook. Plus, Morcos is a fun character.
Lastly, āThe Queen of the A.I.sā is my newest and I think it has the three best chapters Iāve ever written (the final three chapters I am super proud of). But it is YA, and so itās lighter and faster and without as deep a story as most of my other ones.
Basically, any you buy will be appreciated (and if you like them, please consider leaving a review! Those help so much!).
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