Retrospective

It's one of those times when, for whatever reason, I stop and look backwards rather than forwards, and feel pleasantly surprised by how much time has passed since such-and-such an event. Probably these retrospective glances should take place at the end of the year (or the beginning of the new year) but it usually takes me a couple of months to find my feet in a new year, since they're always a bit mad and busy to begin with.

As it turns out, this year is full of convenient anniversaries. At the end of this month it'll be ten years since I first kissed the man I would eventually marry (I then panicked and hid in the toilets for half an hour, but that's maybe a story for another time). Looking back further, it's twenty years since Therapy? released their album Troublegum, which became the soundtrack to my teenage years. It's still arguably one of the finest albums of all time, imo, and it's getting a shiny rerelease this year, which makes me exceptionally happy.

It's also twenty years since I decided I wanted to be a writer.

14 year old Rakie wanted to be a staff writer on a computer games magazine. I had a moderate obsession with a certain gaming magazine, and a teenage crush on one of its staff writers. (By an odd coincidence, I recently found out that my sister's friend now works with my teenage crush-object on a different magazine, so she at least is fulfilling that childhood dream even if I'm not.) If I couldn't work for a magazine, I wanted to be a screenwriter. That one was Tarantino's fault. So I started writing.

It goes without saying that all my early stories and screenplays were awful. I'm happy to report that none of them survive to this day (that I know of), except as fragments in my head that might one day find their way into a completely different story.

Twenty years on and I'm still listening to the same music, reading computer game blogs (so much cheaper and more environmentally friendly than magazines), shouting at Tarantino for being better than me, and writing. Although a lot has changed in those intervening years, those fundamental things haven't, and I sincerely hope they don't. In another twenty years I'd like to be a better writer, with the same backdated taste in movies, music and computer games.

how many drafts?

This came up in conversation a while ago: how many drafts do you do on each novel before you consider it finished?

Which led to the further question: what do you count as a draft?

My idea of a first draft differs hugely from someone else's idea. What I consider a second draft could be considered a third draft by some, or a not-even-first draft by others. It was interesting to see how opinions differed, and it revealed a lot about everyone's working habits.

This is how it breaks down for me... or, more accurately, how I'd define my drafts:

The first draft is the one with the spelling errors.
The second draft is the one with the plot holes.
The third draft is the one with the character problems.
The fourth draft is the one with the niggly little problems that are a complete ball-ache to fix.
The fifth draft is the one with the overwriting.

More accurately still, those are the times when I realise those problems are present and attempt to fix them. :)

So, for me (and I'm speaking exclusively about me here, since everyone's methods are different and no one should attempt to imitate me in anything ever), the first draft tends to be written as fast as possible and is therefore a bit of a hot mess. The first sweep I do it is mostly to make notes, figure out what works and what doesn't, fix some obvious problems, and generally sit with my head in my hands wondering how the hell this story will ever be made good. While I'm at it, I tend to fix any spelling errors I see. I know other people will advise not bothering with things like that at this early stage (chances are that the amended paragraphs will eventually be discarded anyway), but if I leave the spelling errors they'll annoy me every time I read through the story, and that distracts me from the process of, y'know, actual fixing.

At this point I can see where the plot is falling down. So the next draft is for shoring up the gaping holes.

The completed second draft is usually the one I send out to my writing groups for critiquing. I don't like to send it out any earlier because... well, if there're really obvious problems then I should be able to spot them myself. It's not polite to waste everyone's time asking about things I already know, and I'd much rather get their valuable input on the things I can't spot - which is usually everything else.

I find it very difficult, for example, to identify problems with characters, probably because I'm too close to them, and tend to find them charming and endearing rather than, say, obnoxious and annoying. I need someone else to point that out to me.

So the third draft is for fixing up the terrible characters. Which in turn usually creates more plot difficulties (at least for me) as the characters start to act/react in different ways.

Writing groups are also the best way I've found to spot the niggly little ball-ache problems. This can cover just about everything else - POV issues, technical mistakes, problems with pacing and dialogue, etc. Some of these are obviously easier to fix than others. And some create more plot holes or character difficulties, so then I've got to go back and fix those as well...

By now I'm completely sick of this story and just wish it would disappear into a hole forever. On the other hand, it's also the point where the story is finally taking shape and the finish line is in sight. Or, alternatively, it's where I realise the story is never going to work - its foundations are too wonky, its plot is too blah, or I've inadvertently stolen the entire middle section from a much better book. But I'm too close to finished now so all I can do is push for the end...

Final draft is for clearing out the overwriting. I overwrite a LOT. I don't know what the national average is, but I'm sure my writing is towards the top-heavy end. To be fair, I try to take out some of the overwriting as I go through the other drafts, again because otherwise I can't properly see what I'm doing, and because it annoys me. But on this final sweep I'll try to take out everything that's not needed. Take out the unnecessary adverbs, dialogue tags, redundant sentences and repeated words. Leave only the good stuff. Which is, obviously, much easier to say than do.

And then I'll read the bloody thing through once more, this time aloud. This is to catch any remaining awkward phrasing, bad dialogue, residual spelling mistakes (yes, they're still there), and that sort of thing. It's also my least favourite bit of the whole process, because a) I am SO SICK of reading this story by now, and b) I hate the sound of my own voice (not that you'd believe it, I know).

It all makes me quite nostalgic for the innocent times when I used to think the process of writing a novel was just writing it down, printing it out, then putting up your feet and feeling chuffed with yourself.

plugs for friends

Following on from the gratuitous plugging last time, I figured I should plug some stuff that my lovely friends have been doing in recent months. Turns out I've got a LOT of talented friends, and they've all been ridiculously busy... thank goodness I got book tokens for my birthday and Christmas, or my to-read list would be out of control by now.

IMAGE A DAY by Juan Moore
As part of the Island of Culture year here on the waterlogged Isle of Man, local artist and national treasure Juan's posting a picture every day on this new blog of his. There's already some fantastic stuff up there, and there'll be more going up every day. Honestly, I don't know where he finds the time, the talented bastard.

TILL SUNSET by David Woods
The debut feature by David Woods, who is lovely and talented and thoroughly deserves to have his film watched by everyone who owns a blu-ray player.

DEAD LINE by Chris Ewan
Following on from the fantastic success of Safe House, this is Chris Ewan's latest book, and it's super. Fast, fun, stuffed with great characters, this is the sort of writing that makes me very jealous indeed.

THE VAMPIRE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas and Matthew Baugh
A mash-up book with teeth! ... sorry. Ahem. This is a fab version of The Count of Monte Cristo, with added supernatural nastiness courtesy of Matthew Baugh. I'm not a massive fan of the mash-up genre, but this really works, likely because a) it takes itself perfectly seriously, unlike so many other examples of the genre, and b) the author has such a flare for melding the new text with the old that it's difficult in places to remember that the supernatural elements weren't present in the original.

LORDS OF NIGHT by Thom Brannan
Hmm, I think this might have been released in 2012 actually... oh dear, I fail again. Anyway, regardless, this is a grand post-apocalyptic romp, full of action and fun and shouting, and I highly recommend it. Also, look at that cover. Phwoar.

EX-HEROES by Peter Clines
(and also Ex-Patriots, Ex-Communication and (imminently) Ex-Purgatory...)
Really it's getting to the point where no one needs to plug Peter Clines' books anymore. He's like an unstoppable boulder of literary talent, crushing all treasure-seekers in his path. Or something. Anyway, the entire Ex series has been rereleased this past year (with the added bonus of awesome alternate covers for the UK), so now no one has any excuse not to be reading them. Zombies! Superheroes! Really now, what more do you need?

THE PALACE OF CURIOSITIES by Rosie Garland
Oh my gosh. Rosie Garland is arguably one of the most talented people on the planet - singer, performer, poet, author - and she's also gorgeous. I'd love to know what her third wish was. This book is gorgeous as well, and you should read it.

There, I think that covers most of the things I wanted to gush about... if I remember anything else I'll post an update. :)

pluggity-plug

Whilst casting a shifty eye over 2013 and wondering how exactly I lost yet another year, I remembered I've had a few short stories published this year, all of which I forgot to mention here. So, in the spirit of catching up:

TIMES OF TROUBLE
From the lovely bods at Permuted Press comes this shiny e-book anthology of time travel tales, including my story, Let Me Take You There. I am proper chuffed to be included in with so many fantastic stories by fantastic people. It's a fab collection, even if I do say so myself.

THE BESTIARIUM VOCABULUM
An A-Z of monsters, beasts and freaks, from a stellar cast of contributing authors. And also me. :) H for Helicoprion features two of my passions, caving and prehistoric sharks.

THE HORROR EXPRESS VOLUME 4: 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
Likewise, I'm very chuffed that my story, Killers, has found its way into this anthology. The Horror Express has been putting out high quality fiction for... well, for ten years, like it says in the title. I was always disappointed in myself for not getting anything into the magazine, so inclusion in this anthology makes me very happy indeed.

I think that's all from 2013, although my memory is spectacular in its awfulness, so it's entirely possible I've forgotten a writing credit or two...

another year over

As we head into 2014, there's one question on everyone's lips: Where is my jetpack?

Seriously though, aren't we supposed to be living on the moon by now? This is not the technicolour future I'd been hoping for.

On the plus side, we're still here, the world is still turning, and the human race hasn't managed to accidentally or intentionally snuff itself out (yet - there's still a day and a half to go, I suppose). There have been some ups and some downs, as is life, but we've got a bright shiny new year ahead of us, full of promise, and until we pop the seal on the Schrodinger's box of 2014 we have no idea what it may bring us. It's a lovely position to be in, with the coming year so alive with potential, and I'm sure it'll remain that way until we stumble out on the other side of the bank holiday and realise that the new year looks suspiciously similar to the old year.

But regardless, best wishes to you all for 2014, hope it brings you everything lovely in life. Including jetpacks, if at all possible.

Nano, Nano

So, November then.

November is a busy month. It's Movember, for those of us with the ability/desire to grow ridiculous facial hair. It's Thanksgiving for our American friends (and also for us lucky few who have American friends over here that're willing to cook for us). It's my birthday month. It's the commencement of late night shopping and switch-on of Christmas lights and making mince pies and getting pestered about whether you've started your shopping yet. And, of course, it's NaNoWriMo.

This is my sixth year doing Nano. For six years in a row I've given up my November to write a novel.

Okay, that's not entirely true. For a start, I don't really give up that much. I'm supposed to be writing every day anyway, so really it shouldn't be that tough on me to actually, y'know, stick to a schedule. That said, writing every day is tough, even if you're used to it, and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or delusional, or just one of those insufferable people who breeze through everything they do.

The other thing is... 50,000 words is one heck of an achievement, but is it a novel?

I've noticed they've changed the Nano website so it no longer infers that your 50k November-words should be one self-contained novel, but rather encourages you to work on more than one short project, or add your November word count to an existing work in progress. Which, I have to say, is probably sensible. There're only a limited number of genres where a 50k novel is the norm, especially if you're looking at publication. And trying to cram a novel into too short (or too long) a word count is never likely to work.

Something else I noticed from the site is some interesting statistics. I can't find the direct link to the page now (typical) but, for example, the most successful part of the world in terms of total word count and also average word count per participant is... Germany. Huh.

Less surprising on the stats page is that 62% of the worldwide participants this year are Nanoing for the first time. And I think that may be indicative of an inherent problem with Nano - it's difficult, and it's not for everyone. People coming to it for the first time, especially if they're not used to writing regularly, might well find it tough, get discouraged, and drop out. For every person who crosses the 50k finish line, I'd bet there's at least one other who gets so discouraged they decide the writing thing just isn't for them.

As a comparison: There's a walking competition on the Island here, called the Parish Walk. It's a circuit around the Island, totalling 85 miles, that passes through each parish. The circuit has to be completed in 24 hours. From my point of view (sitting on my spreading behind in a comfy, comfy chair) this sounds a lot like madness. 85 miles? A whole day of walking? Over some of the most up-and-downy roads we've got on the Island? Madness.

Yet people do it. A whole bunch of people. There're three people in my office alone who've completed it, and one fella who's come in first on four separate years. I know another woman who did two laps of the course, one after the other--170 miles in 48 hours.

And a startling percentage of the population have taken part at least once. Even me.

One reason why I reckon it's so popular is that finishing the whole 85 miles is not the be-all and end-all of it. There are checkpoints in each parish, and you can pick your own goal--the full monty, the half-monty, or just the first checkpoint if you fancy a five mile stroll. People will walk to beat their previous times, or to go that one parish farther. (Also, it's a massive social event, with spectators coming out of their houses to watch and give you biscuits, and one year there was a beer stall at the top of the steepest slope, but I digress.)

So, my point, if point indeed I have, is that you've got to set your own goals, and you can't look at what everyone else is doing. Yes, some bugger is always going to come in far ahead of everyone else. But they're also the bugger who's out training every evening while I'm at home watching Masterchef. We can't all "win"... unless we define our own parameters of what winning is, and why we want to get there.

Don't get me wrong. I love NaNoWriMo. Like I say, this is my sixth year of participation, resulting in five completed novels and one large messy chunk of rubbish that makes me wince every time I look at it, and I'll hopefully be right here again next year. But, really, it's a pain, isn't it? I'm knackered, my house is a mess, I'm sick of looking at this stupid story, and I had to write on my birthday (I know, diddums). On the plus side, I've got ninety percent of a book, which is more than I had on 1st November.

So... sorry, this seems to be another blog post where I just complain without making any kind of solid point. Big hugs and congratulations to everyone who's taken part in Nano this year--even if you didn't "win", you still won, and don't let a website tell you differently.

Also, it's December on Sunday so we're officially in the run up to Christmas. Blimey, that snuck up on us, didn't it?

"You're Superman... and you're not going to save me."

A bit late to the game, I know, but we finally caught up with Iron Man 3 last night, and were pleasantly surprised. I think it helped that my expectations had been set so low, just by virtue of this being the third in a series, that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

(as usual, movie discussion = spoilers, on the off chance I'm not the only person who hadn't seen it)

A few things I especially liked: One, it was set at Christmas. When was the last time we had a Christmas action movie? I'm looking forward to watching it on a double-bill with Die Hard. Two, the movie anticipated our expectations being low. It introduced the cliche of the middle-eastern bad guy, and we just groaned and rolled our eyes, because what do you expect from the third in a franchise? So when it played its cute little twist, it was a genuine and pleasing surprise. Three, it had a precocious kid who didn't make me want to throw things at the TV, which is a total rarity.

Also, it had one sequence I really liked. It was the utterly ridiculous stunt where Air Force One gets depressurised and all the presidential staff get slooped out at ten thousand feet. Again, I liked it because it confounded my expectations. As soon as the civilian-slooping started, I thought, "that's a bit harsh, what have those poor incidental characters done to deserve that?" because I figured they had already been written out of the script. I expected Tony Stark to maybe save the plane then continue his search for the president. What I didn't expect was for him to jump out of the plane and save everyone.

Why not? After all, it's exactly what a superhero would do. It's exactly what we should expect from a superhero. And yet... so many superheroes in recent movies have become worryingly blase about human life. Too often, incidental civilians die without anyone giving them a second thought. As much as I loved Avengers Assemble, how many people died during the awesome final battle? What about the end sequence of Star Trek: Into Darkness? And don't even get me started on Man of Steel.

So it was surprising and refreshing to see Iron Man acting like a superhero and rescuing the eleven hapless civilians, even if it was one of the more ridiculous sequences in recent times (I was also tickled when, on watching the special features, we realised how many times they had to shove those poor stuntpeople out of a plane in order to get the necessary shots).

If you want my opinion (and if you don't, why the heck are you reading my blog?), superheroes are, by definition, more than human in physical terms, and therefore, it's what they do (or don't do) that defines their humanity. Clark Kent spends half his life working a nine-to-five job and being normal, even though he obviously doesn't have to. Bruce Banner has to literally struggle to be a person rather than a monster. If you're a mutant, how can you prove to yourself and the world that you're still human at heart?

One of my favourite issues of Garth Ennis' superlative Hitman comic involved Tommy Monaghan meeting Superman. It was a coincidental meeting, on a rooftop in the Cauldron. Supes was, at that time, agonising over a recent incident where he'd gone to rescue a space shuttle that was about to explode. He had saved the shuttle and all of the crew... except for one astronaut, who he'd thought was already lost. By the time he realised the man was still alive, trapped outside the shuttle, it was too late to save him.

The story illustrated that Superman can't save everyone. But he has to try, because he's Superman, and if he fails, he has to at least acknowledge the fact that he's failed. Superheroes can't be careless about human life, not if they want to retain their own humanity.

I'm on my soap box a little, so I'll stop, but this is something I feel quite strongly about (not sure if you can tell). We shouldn't be surprised when heroes act like heroes. Shane Black apparently gets that. Someone needs to go tell Zach Snyder.

I'll lend them a big stick to reinforce their point, if it helps.