Take That, You Skeptics!

Last Wednesday I started a new writing program, with a plan to write 1000 words a day for a month. Here’s my first week update: I did it! Twice, yet, one of which was yesterday. Putting in a thousand words is harder than I thought. If you’re in the groove, sure, you can turn out 1000 words and then some within an hour or two, no sweat. When you’re fumbling your way through a story because you’re a pantser and didn’t make an outline beforehand, it gets a little more difficult.

The important thing is, I wrote every one of the last seven days. Some days I got close to the target, other days I just clipped the edges. But all of it was new words, progressing my current WIP. I didn’t even need to switch to another project. If I keep this up, I’ll have the first draft of a story done well before my 30-day deadline, with time left over to start a new one, or get back to the one that got stalled. Or work on both, at 500 words per day apiece. That should help keep things fresh and interesting.

Best of all, I haven’t touched the games in a week, either. The urge has faded, and I intend to stay busy enough so it’ll stay that way. I’ve got a story coming out in another week. If I can make that happen more often, I might be able to make a living at this.

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Now the big question: is anybody listening? Is anyone even looking at this blog?

Apparently not. I had a tiny following when I left Title Magic, and they moved on when I went dark for the last six or seven months. I need to get some attention here. Bring the readers in.

It might be time for some clickbait.

As any spoiled brat and/or teenager knows, the best way to get attention is to scream, rant, break stuff and do outrageous things. I can do outrageous. I’m a writer. I’ve got some ideas that are sure to offend some people, maybe even get me lynched in certain parts of the South. The Internet is a breeding ground for wackadoo, and our current political climate has made it even easier to be outrageous, insulting and even hateful and get away with it. As long as you’re a rich white male, that is.

Well, I’ve got the white part down. Maybe that’ll help.

So now it’s up to you folks. Visit my blog and I’ll stay semi-sweet and only mildly insulting.  Next week I’ll be pimping a book, and the week after that I have a pre-written blog that I plan to post. If the stats haven’t changed by then, it’ll be time to get up on the soapbox and scream at the top of my lungs. Remember, I grew up on science fiction. My perceptions of reality have been warped.

I’m still waiting to see some 15-year-old kid lure the Prez into a flame war on Twitter. C’mon, you trolls. You know you’re dying to do it. Don’t let me down.

Not So Simple Math

(Note: I meant to post this yesterday. There will be an update at the end.)

The other week, while browsing the Reference section at the local Barnes and Noble, I came across a tome entitled Write a Book in a Month. I flipped through it briefly and put it back. I already know how to write a book in a month. An e-book, yeah, those only run about 30K-50K words on average, but it’s labeled a book so it counts.

Besides, I’m betting the book I put back relies heavily on the plotting aspects. If you spend the first two weeks thoroughly developing your characters and plotting out your story, then all you have to do for the second two weeks is write. Everything’s already been taken care of.

Unfortunately, I’m a pantser. Plotting doesn’t always work for me. I’ll start a story with no idea what’s going to happen or who the characters are. I fill all that in as I go. Finding it out is what makes writing fun, as well as a pain in the ass.

Whichever plan you use, there’s a mathematical formula for writing a book in a month. 1000w X 30d = 30,000b. One thousand words a day written every day for thirty days equals a complete 30,000-word story. That amounts to a book, if you stretch the definition a bit. Your book will be longer or shorter if you write more or less per day, but 1000 words makes a good standard. It only takes about an hour or two, depending on how fast you type. It helps if you know what you want to write, but that’s a pantser problem.

In theory, it should work. I’m sure it does work, for most people. The reason it doesn’t work for me is because I don’t do it. I screw off. I procrastinate. Life keeps throwing distractions at me. I sit down to type and the words dry up. I have to stop and make dinner. I just don’t have time. Well, that excuse I can shoot down pretty quick. I was (and probably still am; just had a little setback over the weekend) addicted to video games. I can sit and play games nonstop for anywhere from five to ten hours at a shot. I most certainly do have time, so we can strike that from the list.

What I don’t appear to have is discipline or motivation. I’m the fly in my own ointment.

I did take a shot at it recently. About halfway through August I resolved to write a minimum of 1000 words a day for 30 days in a row. Didn’t work out. No idea why. I couldn’t sit down and write for an hour, and I’ve got three to four things I know I could work on. I just didn’t. I’d end up doing other things.

I decided to hit the reset button and make September my 30 days. I wrote about 700 words on September 1, pretty good for me. On September 2 I discovered I had freelance work, a paying assignment with a short deadline. This was after I’d already planned on mowing the lawn and getting the ironing out of the way. That plus the paid work ate up my time. I spent the Labor Day weekend … well, laboring.

All that was out of the way by Wednesday, though. Did I write? ‘Fraid not. All of a sudden I’m blogging again. That’s what I’ve been writing instead of my thousand words. My subconscious mind is a bugger when it comes to doubling down.

The formula does work. You can write a book in a month. The key word is “write.” If you don’t write those thousand words, or any words at all, that book just ain’t gonna happen. Maybe I should have bought that book at B&N and paid attention to it. There may be more to this plotting stuff than I thought.

So I’m going public. I’m going to try it again. Write 1000 words a day and see where I am after 30 days. I’m putting that intention right here in the open for everyone to see and sneer at. I’m hoping the fear of failure and public humiliation will provide the kick in the ass I need to get said ass in gear.

To the basic formula I’m adding a couple of twists to help me along. Like I said, I’ve got maybe three or four stories already started, that I could be working on. Ideally, I should pick one project to concentrate on so it’ll get done in a month. That doesn’t seem to be working. Let’s try something else: pick one main project and use the other three as backups. If the main one fizzles, or I go on a block or something, I’ll hop over to one of the others. If the 1000 words ends up getting split between three stories on a given day, so what? It’s still 1000 words. Sooner or later something will get finished. Math’s absolute like that.

It also gives me blogging topics, as I report my ongoing success and/or failure. I could even use the 1000 words as a post. This is my page and I can do what I want with it. I’ve thought about returning to Shapeshifter Seductions, which has lain fallow of late, and finally finishing that serial story I abandoned when the writer’s block hit. Those chapters run roughly 1000 words and they’re fiction, so it counts. That’ll be my emergency plan.

As I sit here typing this, it’s Wednesday, September 20. That’s my start date, regardless of when this gets posted. Today and for the 29 days that follow, I will be writing a minimum of 1000 words of fiction, come hell, high water (been a lot of that lately, especially in the south), house- and yardwork, or writer’s block. Or even paid assignments. I used to put even those aside while caught up in the gaming addiction. If I can waste an hour or ten playing Spider Solitaire, I can damn well find the time to write 1000 words.

If nothing else, it’ll be excellent training for the upcoming NaNoWriMo, something else I’ve attempted several times in the past, only to crash and burn within a week. This year when I aim, I might just hit the target. Let’s find out together, shall we?

UPDATE: I got a late start yesterday due to lawn mowing, grocery shopping, and a set of edits that had to go out. And I still wrote 700 words. So there. I might have got all 1000 down, but Supernatural came on. Today should be easier: I wrote about 200-300 words this morning, and Project: Runway has long commercial breaks. Time to whip out the pen and notebook. To be continued ...

Same Shoes, Different World

In our last episode, I talked about YA novel The Black Witch, and the accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other non-PC themes that launched an outpouring of vitriol from people who judged it before reading it. Having read a portion of it and skimmed the rest, I personally concluded it suffered from a plot that would have been radical back in the 1960s but felt trite and worn out in the 21st century. At least it did until the GOP took over. Now that we appear to be fighting those civil rights battles all over again, the book’s right in step with the times.

I’m okay with that. What got my hackles up was another hoary theme, one I’ve been seeing in the current YA bestsellers gracing bookstore shelves.

Thanks to the success of Game of Thrones, we’re seeing a lot of court intrigue plots set in fantasy worlds, with elves and magic and the usual irredeemable bad guys lifted from Lord of the Rings. Thanks to the success of The Hunger Games, the heroic leads in these books are primarily young women. A plucky girl rises from the underclass, defeats the evil king/government/invading army and frees the people from oppression. It’s a tale as old as time, Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces, the classic Hero’s Journey. The last time this plot swept through the collective consciousness, it was called Star Wars and a dude was in the lead. After Hunger Games made a ton of money, the Chosen One underwent a sex change.

So did the way the hero (now the heroine) is treated by the story.

For some reason, no matter how alien these fantasy worlds are, no matter what or how many magical races populate it, women in general remain second-class citizens, there to support the men, get married and pop out (preferably male) children. In The Black Witch, women are forbidden from holding high positions in government. Girls are expected to be betrothed to promising young men while in their early teens. During the course of the story the law changes and these betrothals become mandatory. No heroics for you, missy. You’re gonna get married whether you like it or not. You can save the world after you cook dinner. Our Heroine’s grandmother, the Black Witch of the title and the strongest sorceress ever, is revealed to have been a genocidal maniac. See what happens when a woman gets too powerful? That’s why we can’t give ‘em any responsibility. PMS hits and they go off the deep end. Best to leave the important work to men.

Oh yeah. This civilization, like almost every other alien/fantasy culture I’ve encountered in recent YA literature, has independently discovered the concept of high heels. For women only, natch.

There was so much more in The Black Witch that I felt like I was reading for the thousandth time. Our Heroine has special powers but she’s never been taught how to use them. She’s been raised to believe she has no magic. She ends up in a school setting where of course she runs afoul of the resident mean girl, because OH’s caught the eye of the boy the mean girl wants. OH goes to a party where she wears a pretty gown that’s described in great detail, and the aforementioned heels. And she finds a cute boy among the oppressed classes. After 600 pages of story she still hasn’t discovered her power, let alone been taught how to use it. Maybe in the next book.

These are the books being marketed to teenage girls, and these are the messages they’re sending: sure, you can have adventures, but you still have to go to school and put up with girl bullies and jerk boys who treat you like crap and still expect you to fall in love with them. Good luck finding someone to teach you how to use those special powers you’ll be needing to save the world. Be sure to go to fancy parties and wear really pretty dresses and too-tight shoes with heels. And you will find a boy. That’s the important thing. It’s the Disney Princess version of the Hero’s Journey.

It’s like the Women’s Movement never happened. Well, maybe parts of it did. Girls can aspire to save the world, as long as they remember what really matters: being pretty, being popular, wearing nice clothing, and pairing up with a boy, despite him acting like an abusive a-hole and even if he tries to kill you. He’ll change once you marry him, promise.

Might as well get used to it. You’re going to find it wherever you go throughout the multiverse, elves or no elves. Promoting outdated sexist views in worlds and societies not even remotely connected to Earth is apparently still acceptable. I’ll bet if there was a queen in these books, she’d either be the evil type, or shown vacuuming the throne room in an evening gown and a strand of pearls. And heels.

I don’t recall Luke Skywalker attending fancy balls, or lots of time devoted to what he was wearing. He was too busy getting trained in the Force so he could save the galaxy. Yeah, there was a girl, a Princess, even, but she turned out to be his sister. Good thing he wasn’t being pressured to get married so he could sire a line of new Jedis. And what about Leia? She was Vader’s offspring too. Was she ever trained, or even tested for the Force? Apparently not. She did what was expected of her: married Han Solo and had a son. He got trained as a Jedi, which didn’t turn out very well.

That was over 30 years ago. Here we are in the 21st century, and girls, even heroes, are still expected to do what’s expected of them. Maybe Rey will buck the trend. We’ll see if she gets a boyfriend in the next installment.

In short, when it comes to current YA literature, the worldview for women has barely budged beyond the image of the 1950s housewife. We’ve just dressed it up in Middle Earth trappings. This is what we’re selling to our daughters. That was my takeaway from The Black Witch. Maybe the world will change for Our Heroine, once she saves it with those powers nobody’s taught her how to use. I suspect the story’s going to end with her happily married to her boyfriend, and living in a mansion surrounded by children in a world that now has racial equality. Gender inequality will still be subtly enforced, especially for the readers.

Dammit, times like these I really miss Buffy. And Xena. They took the world by the throat and had adventures and weren't defined by their boyfriends and didn’t give a damn what anyone said. And Xena, at least, wore sensible shoes.

A Case of Really Bad Timing

Aaaaaaaand I’m back. Yeah, I know, it’s been a while. Between a time-sucking job and personal issues, things kind of got away from me. I can’t quit the job because I need the income, but I’ve finally got a handle on the other stuff. So here I am again. Dunno how long it’ll last. Long enough to promo the book I’ve got coming out some time in the next couple of months, I hope. Other books will follow, again, I hope. Writer’s block, procrastination and time management were among those personal issues.

Today I’m going to talk about someone else’s book—specifically, The Black Witch by Laurie Forest, a young adult novel published back in May. I mention the date because it may be significant to what this poor book went through. I’ll tell the story, you be the judge.

I wasn’t going to read this book, probably wouldn’t even have heard of it if I hadn’t come across a discussion about it on a writers’ site. Seems the book, even before publication, stirred up quite a brouhaha on Twitter among readers for what one reviewer claimed was blatant overtones of racism, sexism, homophobia, and all sorts of other mean, nasty things unfit for human consumption. Scathing, one-star reviews began popping up on Goodreads and Amazon. Remember, this was before the book actually came out. Either people with advance copies were passing them around, or the bulk of those bad reviews were coming from people who hadn’t even read the book.

Well, I did read the book, because I like to make up my own mind about things. Rather, I read about half of it, and had to skim the rest because I got it from the library and had to return it before I could finish its 600 pages. Time management issues, remember? I got the gist of the plot and the characters, and read the end to see where it was headed. That’s still probably more than what some of those reviewers who blasted it did.

Plot synopsis: Elloren, a quiet country girl from this thinly-disguised Earth substitute’s ruling class, goes off to University and starts mingling with all the magical races—elves, werewolves, demons, the usual fantasy suspects—she’s been taught are inferior and the enemy. Of course, as she gets to know them as individuals she discovers they’re just people like she is, in spite of the fangs and wings and claws and different-colored skin. (We’re talking mostly blue and purple here. I have no idea what color Elloren is. The book never really says. The only designated white people are elves.) Elloren comes down with a case of Privileged People’s Guilt and becomes a student activist for civil rights against her people’s repressive—and genocidal—government.

Oh yeah, and Elloren’s grandma was the Black Witch who years ago won the war that set all this in motion, and it’s strongly suggested Elloren has her powers but isn’t aware of it. We can see this ending coming from a mile away, can’t we, folks?

That was my real beef with the book. Is it racist? Sure, if that’s how you want to read it. There’s definitely a ton of “othering” going on, and Our Heroine, a member of the privileged class, is destined to become the champion of the oppressed, since the oppressed “lesser” races never seem able to produce a champion of their own and have to rely on their oppressors to cough out a leader for them. At least, that’s how it goes in books like this. I’ve been around for awhile, and I’ve seen this plot before. Many, many times before.

Don’t believe me? Go read Dune. Privileged outsider gets stranded in the desert, becomes the prophesied leader of the native people, and leads his army of the oppressed to victory over the corrupt ruling class. It was written in the ‘60s, and the tale was ancient then.

In fact, that was my take on this book. To me, it read like a fantasy version of a sheltered middle-class girl experiencing college life at Berkeley in 1968. The school has an ROTC program, the protesters take out a military base, and their country’s about to go to war. I guess the elves are supposed to be hippies. Power to the people! Right on!

So how did a book with a plot and characters this hoary get slammed with the racist label even before it debuted? I don’t think it was the book itself. I think it was a case of bad timing.

This isn’t an ebook, it’s print. It hit the shelves in the spring. That means the publisher bought it at least two years ago. It would have been conceived and written well before that. While this book was being written, sold, edited, rewritten and prepped for publication, Obama was in the White House. We had a black President, a liberal outlook, and social change. Gay marriage was legalized. So was pot. Yeah, baby!

Had this book come out in that political climate, I doubt it would have gotten much attention. Maybe some eye-rolls and comments of, “Not this dead horse again.” But right before The Black Witch hit the shelves, the administration changed, and so did our national atmosphere. All of a sudden we have deportations, Black Lives Matter, transgender people barred from military service and the KKK publicly praising the Prez. A book that, last year, would have seemed trite and dated is suddenly scarily relevant.

As for the book itself, now that it’s available to the general public, it’s getting good reviews from people who’ve actually taken the time to read the thing. Praise for its world-building seem to top the list. Okay, I can’t fault it for that, or for the writing itself. It’s not a badly-written book, just, in my opinion, saddled with an ancient plot. A case of been there, done that, read this same story before. Had I read this when I was a teenager, the book’s target age group, I probably would have enjoyed it. Though I would have thought Dune was way better.

I have other bones to pick with The Black Witch, and I’ll get to them at some point in the future. Don’t know when. Time management issues, y’know.