Category: ghost raven

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ebooks games ghost raven legacy Uncategorized

Look, it’s the bare minimum!

I figure one post a year, on the last day of the year, is just enough activity to call this blog ‘sporadic’ rather than ‘moribund’.

It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it. We need every victory we can get in these slowpocalypse days, as the great engine that is/was human civilisation shudders and groans and shits blood into the ecosystem that once supported it. We may not have much time left to enjoy them.

2022 was… look, I’m not saying I enjoyed 2020 and 2021, but there was a kind of dull certainty to lockdown, as well as some comfort in knowing that world governments were (at least theoretically) prioritising public health over economic growth. 2022 pulled away what little community and safety we had, leaving us a chaotic world in which our leaders had clearly decided that our money was more important than our lives.

But we got through it – well, most of us, I guess – and that’s worth celebrating. We may not have hope, but at least spite can keep us going.

I’ll have a gallon of hate and a wedge of spite, please

So what will I be spiteful about in 2023?

Ebooks/freebooks

Earlier this month I made all my various ebooks free – not as a sale, but permanently. They’d never made me much money, and I’d reached the point where adding up my royalties every year when doing my taxes was more work than it was worth.

This whole trilogy? Free now. Merry Christmas or whatever.

But also, this has been a year of me gravitating towards idiosyncratic stories, art and games – work in which the creators prioritised their personal vision over wider exposure or commercial success. Coupled with my day job (I write and edit for a living, just not in a way anyone cares about) providing me both financial security and a certain amount of personal satisfaction, I’ve realised that ‘success’ as a writer no longer means ‘money and full-time employment’ to me. Instead, it means getting my work into the hands of those who might get enjoyment from it.

So yeah – free ebooks! These are done now, I’m (mostly) proud of them but they’re in my past, and I’d rather see them find an audience than bring anything back to me (except praise, please praise me).

If you follow this blog but haven’t read my books – and that sounds ridiculous to me, but who knows – you can find links on the site’s various subpages, or just go to my Smashwords profile for all the direct links. (All Smashwords, sorry – Apple don’t truck with freebies.)

Wrestling with demons

But what about future books? I may not want them to make me rich or famous, but I do want people to find and read them, and that probably means a) getting them published and b) ugh, finishing them.

I’m still trying to find a home for my YA fantasy novel Raven’s Blood, but with no success. Yesterday I got a rejection email from an agent I contacted in March 2021 – so I guess these things take time. I’ll rethink my approach and try again (spitefully) in 2023.

Not in my book, maybe should be.
(art by Ramon Villalobos)

I’m also working on a YA urban fantasy about professional wrestlers, provisionally entitled Piledriver – except that I’m not. By that I don’t mean that I haven’t been writing it (although let me be clear, I haven’t), but that it’s no longer an urban fantasy. The more I worked on my notes and outlines, the more I realised that the fantasy elements (dream demons, the Benandanti, psychic combat etc) weren’t integrating with the rest of the material. So I’ve ditched all that, preferring to focus on the story of young wrestlers working out the business and their relationships, with maybe some non-supernatural mysteries in the background.

I’m already more excited about writing this story than I was the previous version – and the research for this one involves less reading and more watching sick wrestling matches on YouTube. So it’s win-win!

Is it enough win to get me to do the work in 2023? Let’s hope spite so!

Antisocial media

One thing that will probably/maybe help with the writing is getting off Twitter, which has taken up a lot of my attention and energy over the last few years. Hell, Twitter is the main reason I don’t blog anymore – I realised that I could reach far more people and get far more engagement with a 30-word quip than by spending two hours writing a post.

But Twitter is not what it was. Sure, it was a hellsite that harboured Nazis and terfs, and encouraged toxic interactions for clicks and likes, but at least the old owners pretended that they thought that was a bad thing. Now it’s the property of Elon fuckin’ Musk, and that apartheid failson has fully embraced and encouraged the worst parts of the platform, and indeed humanity, due to his bottomless need to be loved and admired by everyone despite being a sockful of dogshit with a full wallet and an empty head.

I’m not willing to validate this fucknugget’s actions with my attention or presence (let alone my money), so I’m out. I’m parking my Twitter account for a week after this post goes up – no interaction or reading, just leaving it up long enough to let folks know I’ve gone – and then deactivating it.

Where will I go? I’m thinking… nowhere. I’m thinking freedom from the constant pressure of knowing the thoughts of other people, even those I like. I’m thinking of no longer coming up with bon mots (or at least dick jokes) to get people’s attention. I’m thinking of walking into the bush and never returning spending more time writing books and less time performing for micropulses of dopamine.

…I mean, yes, I set up patrickoduffy accounts on Hive and Mastodon, but that was just to lock down the username in case one of the other 5-6 PODs in the world get ideas. And yes, I’m on Facebook and Instagram, but I cannot stress enough how little I use or care about those platforms.

So let’s try raw-dogging life for a while, without the toxic prophylactic of social media. Fuck you, that’s a great metaphor.

Shameless self-promotion

Before I wrap up and get ready for a big phat NYE party – by which I mean watching RRR with my wife – I have something to plug!

Back in 2018-2019 I worked on the new edition of Greg Stolze’s RPG Reign, a fantasy system with a focus on both characters and organisations, and rules for playing organisations like characters. My contribution was not fantasy, though – it was LEVIATHAN, a modern-day horror-investigation campaign, co-written with Greg, where players run a Men-in-Black agency, learn about Australian weirdness and try to… prevent a pandemic.

In hindsight, our version of things was pretty unrealistic, but it was also more fun to play.

Anyway, Reign 2E has been a long time coming, but it’s here now! Reign Rules (the rules) and Reign Realms (the setting(s)) are both available in PDF, with print-on-demand options on the horizon, and Reign Realities (which contains not just LEVIATHAN but a dozen or so alternate settings and campaigns) is… maybe coming next week? I’m jumping the gun, I know, but I needed to get this in before the end of 2022.

So let me leave you with these images of LEVIATHAN pages, which aren’t quite readable but do promise intriguing mysteries (emus! ants! laboratories! Harold Holt!).

This is probably my last-ever RPG work – well, unless people I like ask me to work on something, like the last few times – and I think it’s going out with a bang. Hopefully y’all will feel the same.

OH GODDAMNIT I said ‘hopefully’.

I guess spite hasn’t fully consumed me yet. Typical.

Categories
ghost raven obituarist publishing writing

Okay, now what? (2020 edition)

It’s been a looooooong time coming, but as discussed earlier this month, The Obituarist 3 is finished, published and out in the market, where it’s already enjoying literally dozens of sales.

(well, maybe not plural-dozens just yet, but I’m optimistic.)

Hooray! My white whale is dead at last!

From Hell’s heart you stab at me! Tee-hee!

So that’s great. Super cathartic and personally fulfilling, etc etc blah de blah.

But now what do I do with my spare time?

More Obituarist work

Surprise! Nothing ever ends! This world is a purgatory!

Publishing a book is never the final act. Marketing and promotion are still desperately needed if you want your work to make even a single ripple when dropped into the wide dark sea of the internet. Which is a shame, ‘cos I’m completely shit at marketing and promotion! Yet I must nonetheless talk about the book on social media, and attempt to harness my wagon to the caravans of more popular and successful authors, if there’s to be any hope of getting some sales for this book that is, objectively, a really fuckin’ good read.

(Incidentally, this – more than anything else – is why I want to leave self-publishing behind. Fuck the royalty share, I just want someone to do the marketing work for me, you can have all my money, I don’t mind, I’m so old and so, so tired.)

On top of that, I need to update this site with an Obit3 tab that has the blurb, image, purchase links, super-complimentary 5-star reviews (hint freakin’ hint, readers) and so on. Personal website maintenance! Yay! Just like a regular admin job except way less rewarding!

So yeah. Just when I thought I was out, blah blah blah.

Back to Raven’s Blood

And speaking of objectively good books – and by that I mean subjectively good books that I wrote, so don’t be rude – I want to return to Raven’s Blood, my YA superhero fantasy novel that I would dearly love to a) publish and b) turn into a whole Batgirl-meets-D&D series of Ghost Raven books.

Yes but no I mean not quite but also dang how good is this art

I believe in this book, I really do, and that’s probably why my failure to find either a publisher or an agent that believed in it contributed to my… let’s say ‘mental health fluctuations’ over the last few years. I hit a wall, and that’s on me rather than the wall – but walls can be climbed, and it’s perhaps time to work on that again.

How to do that? Well, I’m starting this week by joining a YA writing program/course by Faber/A&U. That could lead to some networking opportunities, but I care more about the opportunities to write my book gooder better, which I know it could be.

Coming out of that, I want to do some rewrites and then YET ANOTHER round of approaching agents and publishers, and you’ll know how well that goes by checking in here and seeing how often I use terms like FUCKPIG and JIZZ SUICIDE.

(PS that art is by Kelsey Eng and OMG it’s so freakin’ good let’s all order some prints)

Onto the next project

Or I could write something else.

I have plenty of ideas!

Which is great, except that ideas are cheap and mean nothing if they aren’t developed and realised in some form!

There’s a lot of content I’d like to work on here – from YA to SF to horror to magical realism to I dunno fuckin’ swords & shit – and I think they’re all ideas worth exploring.

I will not get to explore all of these ideas before I die.

That’s fun to think about.

Alternatively, fuck it all

Thoughts like that – or like ‘we live in a virus-afflicted late-stage-capitalist hellscape to which a heroic dose of ketamine is the only sane response’ – are not especially great for productivity. But it’s hard to divert the brain once it starts wandering down that particular garden path, or to steer it away from concepts like ‘the sunk-cost fallacy’ or ‘the limited opportunities available to Australian writers in a US/UK-dominated publishing marketplace’ or ‘let’s take a heroic dose of ketamine because the future isn’t coming’.

It’s hard some days – these days, right now, in particular – to find a reason to keep trying.

If I was smarter, I’d be capable of giving up.

But that’s not who I am or where we are.

So I guess we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the… okay, this metaphor got away from me, like all the rest.

‘spose I should write something about that.

Categories
character ghost raven obituarist writing

Skin deep

One notable thing about the 2010s is how many popular concepts from the 20th century are getting a revival. Some of those popular things are bad, like measles and Nazism. Others are good, like D&D and audio drama.

Let’s focus on the good for the moment. It’s a great time for RPG actual play podcasts, also known as ‘let’s listen to total strangers playing D&D for two hours as if that’s somehow entertaining rather than torturous’.

1000% accurate depiction of ‘Critical Role’

I kid, I kid. I used to think listening to other people roleplay was incomprehensible, but now an embarrassingly large proportion of my podcast playlist is taken up with AP ‘casts. They’re a good way to learn how other players/GMs approach games, after all – and god help me, the best of them are entertaining.

(The worst… look, it’s real easy to unsubscribe to a bad podcast 2 minutes after starting it.)

The successful ‘casts also have big fan followings – again, a concept none of us thought was possible or sane back in the day. The people, they LOVE listening to the D&D. They tweet about it. They tumble it. They patron it.

Anyway, if you check out social media activity around AP casts, or indeed any other form of audio drama/comedy/etc., the number one thing that comes through is that listeners, desperately, desperately want to know what these characters look like.

And that baffles me.

—

The thing I find least interesting, the thing I skip over in any book, the fast-forward-or-fuck-it-delete-the-whole-thing trigger in any audio medium… it’s what people look like. It’s descriptions of clothing. Of facial features. Of ohfuckmedead hair colour. Tell me about the character’s ringlets and freckles and I’m putting down the book/’cast in favour of strong drink.

Look, I get it. I know I’m wrong. I’m the weird one here. It’s utterly natural for human beings, a species that (mostly) uses sight as their primary way of perceiving all of existence, to want that sense reflected in their fiction.

But fuuuuuuuuuck it bores me.

I blame Raymond Chandler, as I often do. He taught me that you could describe characters through metaphor and simile without ever specifying what colour pants they were wearing. Consider lines like:

From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.

She had eyes like strange sins.

(Yes, I know Chandler described people more thoroughly at other times, and even what they were wearing. Don’t blow up my spot, I’m on a roll.)

I read lines like that at an impressionable age, too young or dumb to register Chandler’s misanthropy, misogyny, homophobia or general shittiness as a person, and they stuck with me. To the point where I struggle to engage with any prose or audio that takes the time to spell out all the details, and to where I look at fanart and clamourings for ‘official’ artwork of podcast characters as some kind of missive from an alternate reality that I would prefer not to visit, thank you.

—

The principle holds true in my writing. The best description I ever wrote of a character was ‘He had a face like a stab’. That suggests not only what the character looks like (sort of), it speaks to his personality and attitude – and to the personality and thought processes of the narrator that described him.

(I abandoned the project that included that description. But I swear I’ll use it again someday.)

But here’s the thing, and the reason why this is a blog post rather than a grumpy tweet – I realise this might be a problem. That readers – the readers I want to obtain and retain – like knowing what people look like. Especially in YA fiction, which I have decided to keep plugging away at like a punch-drunk bantamweight too concussed to know when to quit.

(Hmm. Might keep that Chandlerism too.)

So with Raven’s Blood, I started working on describing characters more. I’m not sure I succeeded. But as I start planning the next, hopefully final revision pass through that MS in a hope of finding it a home, and indeed to start writing the next novel, descriptions – of characters, clothing, places – are something I’m trying to focus on. And to find some middle ground between a five-word simile and a page-long then I looked in the mirror and listed all of my cute identifying traits monologue. Surely I can manage that.

(As for The Obituarist series… Kendall Barber’s skinny, bald and missing some fingers. And honestly I’m not sure he’s that skinny any more, 5-6 years on. I couldn’t tell you any more than that, and I hope you don’t ask.)

So that’s where my head is right now. Chime in with a comment if you’re so inclined. How important are visual descriptions or depictions to you? Do you feel the need to imagine what characters look like? And what kind of descriptive shorthand (if any) works for you?

—

BORING PRODUCTIVITY UPDATE: We moved house in the long gap between this post and the last, and I took a lot of concentration-destroying painkillers to cope with a knee injury.

But now we’re settled, I’m (mostly) off the drugs and walking straight, and I’m past the halfway mark on The Obituarist III. Which is proving to have a remarkable number of scenes in which Kendall is just wandering around without pants on.

Don’t blame me. I’m just a vessel for his truth.

Categories
games ghost raven reading

Post-stocktake audit

Hey folks!

So last update was a bit downbeat, even if I tried to look on the positive at the end. (I’m a regular Pollyanna like that.)

Things haven’t substantially changed since then, but my mood is better and I’m even more inclined to accentuate the positive. So on that note, and because I can’t think of anything too substantial to talk about this week, let’s talk about some Things What Are Pretty Good.

Freelance work

I’m getting a fair bit of it! And people have actually started paying their invoices this week, which is awfully nice.

I also worked last Saturday at the election, spending the day issuing declaration ballots at a local polling centre. That was kind of fun and interesting for a large part of the day – you get to chat to people and get a feel for their character when you’re asking them where they live and finding their voting papers. Once the polls closed and we had to spend almost seven freakin’ hours reconciling paperwork, counting votes and sorting the gigantic Senate ballots into messy piles (above the line, below the line, informal, drawings of penises and angry screeds)… that part was less fun. And very tiring, which is why I didn’t post anything last weekend.

I have stories I could share about that experience, but I think I’m legally prohibited from doing so publicly. If you see me in person, buy me a beer and I’ll explain to you how awful democracy is, and why it took a week to work out a government.

Writing work

Still not a huge amount of progress on this lately, since overlapping freelance gigs have taken up a lot of my headspace, and I gotta make that cheddar somehow. Still, I’ve been working on tweaking the dialogue in Raven’s Blood to make it a little less archaic for some of the characters. I was trying to invoke a bit of Elizabethan manner and idiosyncrasy in the characters’ speech patterns (especially swearing), but on reflection it’s more important to keep dialogue accessible and immediate, at least for the viewpoint characters. (Plus it lets me show immediate contrasts between them and more mannered, formal characters.)

Once I do the dialogue revision, the next thing is to get this book in the hands of a few agents and go the hard sell on the series. I’ve been researching appropriate agents for this kind of work, and I’m pulling together a query letter and book/series pitches into a package. Soon I’ll be releasing it into the wild – or at least emailing the names in my spreadsheet.

Yeah, I got a spreadsheet. That’s how you know I’m serious.

Books

I’m still trying to improve my reading practice and schedule reading time; some days I’m better at it than others.

Right now I’m most of the way through The Squared Circle, David Shoemaker’s history of professional wrestling in the 20th century. Specifically, looking at that history through stories of dead wrestlers. That sounds grim, and it is terribly sad in places, but Shoemaker’s writing is both intelligent and compassionate; he uses the stories of the dead to show how they shaped (and still shape) the land of the living.

There are also piledrivers.

I’ve also been reading Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, a really fascinating writing guide that focuses more on inspiring and shaping imagination than it does on rules of grammar, plot construction or time management. (Although those are in there too.) Beautifully illustrated, engaging written and at times appallingly irritating, I don’t agree with everything in it but I want to keep reading it. Sadly it’s back at the library now, but I’m going to overcome my cheapskate impulses once I get another freelance cheque and buy it (along with Vandermeer’s more prosaic Booklife, which is about effective practice) for some sustained deep reading.

Music

I just keep listening to Grimes’ Art Angels over and over again.

You know how it is.

Games

I’m about to start running a short game of the World Wide Wrestling RPG, as I continue falling back into the world of pro wrestling I left a decade ago. However, this game is set in a haunted RSL, with wrestlers that include a werewolf, a glitter-addicted alien and a puppy summoner, so I think it will be less tragic than mid-00s WWE.

I’ve also been playing a bit of Pillars of Eternity, a CRPG that I’ve been wanting to play for a while and that was finally on sale. It’s a modern game in its own setting that reuses the style (and most of the systems) of old D&D CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate. It’s an interesting one, and there’s a lot to like in its plotting and development; it’s a great lesson in how to draw multiple stories, characters and situations out of a tight set of consistent themes and motifs. It’s also a great lesson in how execution can undercut mood, and how catering to the whims of 70 000 Kickstarter patrons can damage both story and gameplay.

Hmm. Might write more about it when I finish. Probably in a few months.

MY POKEMANS LET ME SHOW YOU THEM

IMG_1798

Um, I mean… the local wildlife is kinda weird in this suburb.

—

So anyhoo, that’s what I’m up to.

Check back soon and see whether I have anything interesting to say.

It’s gotta happen eventually.

Categories
blogging ghost raven

Transmission resumed

…and we’re back.

Spider-manBackInBlackSti

—

NEWSFLASH: House-hunting and moving are THE WORST. Like, worse than leprosy.

Okay, maybe not, but they’re sure as hell time-consuming. The last two months have locked me into a space where all I did was a) look at houses on real estate apps, b) text real estate app listings to my wife, often while she was sitting next to me, c) look at houses and be disappointed, and finally d) put everything we owned into boxes into a feverish yet determined rush. That left me no time for writing books, writing blog posts, writing emails or even getting drunk.

And come on, I can get drunk ANYTIME.

1182775-homer_drunk_on_couch

—

But the great national nightmare is over, and we are living in a new house. It’s a bit more off-the-beaten-track than we used to be, with fewer bars and cafes within walking distance, and yeah, I miss being able to go to the cinema on 90 seconds’ notice, whether or not I ever used that dread power.

On the other hand we have a library room, the tram isn’t far away, and there’s a back yard that the dog is slowly realising is there for him to roll around in.

Also? I HAVE A WRITING SHED.

…okay, technically it’s a writing bungalow. And the writing part is currently playing second fiddle to the storing-boxes-full-of-stuff part. But damnit, I now have a detached office where I can go to write books, complain about the cold and scowl artistically, so suck it Wendig, you’re not so special.

Ahem.

IMG_1691

I know it doesn’t look like much right now, but once we move some boxes, install a coffee plunger and hook up the smoke machine it’ll be so rad, bro.

—

As for what I’m doing in my shed?

Not a huge amount just yet, as there’s still a lot of unpacking and furniture assemblage that needs doing. But once we have some bookcases out and can cram them full of stuff, I’ll have enough physical and mental space to get back to work properly.

First job? Taking another revision pass through Raven’s Blood, because it’s not quite where it needs to be just yet, and I could do about 50% more with it if it was about 5% better. Once I finish doing that, it’s back to work on Raven’s Bones, and seeing if I can fit more fantasy superhero action into the story without all the seams bursting.

On top of that, blog posts! Honest. It’s time to get back on the regular posting wagon, and I swear to you, my adoring (or at least patient) public, that the long and terrible silence is finally over.

…but not right now, ‘cos I have to put together a futon.

Ciao for now.

SHED.

Categories
ghost raven Uncategorized writing

Falls the shadow

So a month ago I came back from GenreCon all fired up with big ideas and focused ambitions. No more writing at random! I was going to GET SERIOUS. I was going to follow a PLAN. I was going to put together AN OUTLINE and then probably FOLLOW IT.

I mean, this was some GROWN-UP SHIT, MOFOS.

So how did that work out?

Well.

Or as TS Eliot put it:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

I had a lot of big ideas and ambitions, but in the end my mouth was writing cheques that my arse couldn’t cash, and that’s a metaphor you probably didn’t need and I’m sorry.

See, here’s the thing: you need to do more than say ‘I need a plan’. You actually have to make a plan and follow it, which is the point where I’ve come unstuck. Instead I’ve been sitting at the computer most nights, saying ‘I think plans are swell!’ and then smacking my face into the keyboard in the hopes that it would somehow turn into a 6-figure advance for Raven’s Bones.

End result: I’ve written like a page and a half. And the half is shaky.

It turns out wanting a plan isn’t enough; you actually have to create and follow one for it to work. Which is, god, so hard you guys. That requires actual planning and thinking instead of just pie-in-the-sky tweeting and six hours of Saints Row IV.

At this point I should probably say ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ but uuuggghhh *makes jerk-off motion* no thanks. That’s a bridge too far.

Look, I meant well. I still believe that I need to have a coherent plan and direction for my work. I need to have structures, processes, benchmarks; I need to treat this like a job, because that’s what it is. And I totally intended to follow up on that.

The key thing is, good intentions don’t count for shit.

 

Right now, I don’t have the time or energy for much more than good intentions. Between a demanding day job, Brisbane-style summertime (WTF MELBOURNE) and a shameful need to interact with other people on a regular basis, I don’t have enough in the tank most nights for more than a few hundred words – hell, a few dozen. I want to treat writing like work – and sometimes work is hard. Harder than I can manage.

So what’s the alternative? What can I do with what I do have in the tank (we’re just shitting the bed on metaphors tonight, sorry) and where can good intentions actually be useful?

The answer, I think, is preparation. And making December into a month where I actually prepare, organise and yes, even plan for a better 2016. One free from false starts, self-recrimination and flesh-eating viruses.

December is when I’ll spend time genuinely planning this book like a proper project, with milestones, metrics and timelines. (I’ve taken the advice of several friends and started reading Todd Henry’s The Accidental Creative, which is apparently good for this sort of thing.)  December is when I’ll write more world-building notes – time to flesh out the Lunar Pantheon, name more districts and neighbourhoods of Crosswater, update my maps and character sketches and setting history. And December is when I’ll fine tune my outline, do more research and kick the kinks out of my plot. (All this and Christmas too.)

These things don’t need to be polished, they don’t need to be understandable to others, they don’t even need to be ‘good’. They just need to work. And as a long-time GM, I know all about making shaky, unintelligible, borderline-incoherent notes that nonetheless are enough to maintain a campaign for months or even years.

So there’s something for y’all to look forward to when this book finishes.

And with that, enough self-flagellation; I need bacon and sleep.

Not at the same time.

Categories
ghost raven writing

Getting to work – Raven’s Bones

As discussed last week, I’ve had a change of plan – or, more accurately, I actually have a plan for once.

That plan is to put Sick Beats aside for a while to write Raven’s Bones, the next in the Ghost Raven series, and to do so in a reasonable timeframe – six months rather than three years. That’s a totally reachable target – it boils down to about 4000 words or two chapters a week, and I can definitely manage that if I actually work rather than just faffing about.

So what the hell is Raven’s Bones anyway?

Without getting into spoiler territory for a book that only half-a-dozen people have read, Bones (like Blood) is a YA superhero fantasy novel set in a sorta-kinda-Elizabethan world of magic, artifice, gods, refugees, racial tension and occasional masked adventurers. It’s the next chapter in the story of Kember Arrowsmith, angry young woman with a need for justice, and the Ghost Raven, long-lost hero of the city of Crosswater.

Set a few months after Blood, it shows Kember dealing with new responsibilities, new relationships and new dangers, and having trouble with all of them. She’ll encounter figures from the past along with brand new threats, she’ll hurt everyone she cares about and she’ll punch a lot of people right in the face. Bad people. Probably.

And yes, it involves actual bones. Entire skeletons-worth, in fact. Along with super-villains, dwarves, sulky gods and a giant mechanical spider in a Dracula cape.

Google Image Search, you have failed me

But just sitting down at the keyboard and saying ‘Punching! Feelings! Capes!’ isn’t a plan or a coherent direction. So I’m writing an outline – for the first time ever – to give myself more of a roadmap at the start. I may end up following it, I may end up ignoring it, but it’s there to keep me focused.

I’ve also written myself a list of questions, which I need to answer before or during (probably a mix of both) the process of writing Bones:

  • What are the core themes of this book? How are they different to those of Raven’s Blood?
  • What new regions of the setting do I want to explore? What new concepts and elements?
  • What characters are coming over from Raven’s Blood? What new characters are coming on board?
  • How will this book raise the stakes from Raven’s Blood?
  • What will be Kember’s arc over the course of the book?
  • What does Kember want to achieve over the course of the book?
  • Who gets punched? Like, a lot?

These, along with the outline, a variety of notes and as much visual/creative idea fodder as I can find, are going up on the wall behind my computer to be the first thing I see every time I sit down at the desk. A constant reminder that hey, stop playing Pillars of Eternity (which I don’t have yet but totally need to get) and hit your goddamn targets for the week.

Do the work. Follow the plan. Focus on the mountain, as Neil Gaiman apparently said (according to this kick-arse blog post from Peter Ball, which I interpret as a whip specifically and personally aimed at my back).

Will it work?

Gonna find out.

First chapter is due this weekend.

Let’s do this.

Categories
ghost raven writing

Post-Con tactical assessment

So GenreCon 2015. That was a thing.

A good thing, at that. A really great chance to meet other genre writers, discuss craft and practice with new and established talents, catch up with old friends in Brisbane, drink excessive amounts of beer and bust out ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ at karaoke once again.

Good times. Great times. Very much worth the trip. Definitely heading back in 2017 for the next one.

But mostly it’s made me think about what I’m doing wrong.

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I don’t mean that in terms of my writing per se, or my general level of craft. While I’ve lots of room to improve there (as does pretty much every writer), I’m reasonably happy with where I currently am on that learning curve. (Hopefully you folks are too.)

Fundamentally, I’m talking about my treatment of writing as a career or a professional practice; hell, even as a job. About taking myself seriously as a working writer, who has a plan and is actively striving to meet goals, rather than a hobbyist or dilettante who flits from project to project, randomly ‘experimenting’ and then giving up when it’s too hard. Because flailing about at new things, rather than picking one target and shooting for it, is getting me nowhere.

In other words, I’m talking about planning and strategy.

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Which is tricky. I’m not a planner by nature, not much of a one for strategy. I’m okay with setting short-term goals and direction, but medium- or long-term? Not my strength. I’m better as a problem-solver, a fixer, a tactician – someone who copes with change and can overcome immediate obstacles quickly and with minimal stress.

But just as my day job is demanding more strategic thinking and coordination from me these days (and giving me some PD around that, which is nice), so too is my night job. Writing a novel every three years, or a novella every 18 months, doesn’t make for any kind of sustainable career. Even if I look at non-financial definitions of ‘success’ – and I think writers should think about more than just dollars-in-pocket when deciding for themselves what success looks like – I’m still only making haphazard progress, and towards goals that are ill-defined.

A defined, coherent strategy is well overdue. And bloody hard for me to think about.

Is there a middle ground? Well, maybe. I discussed this with a couple of folks over the weekend, and they got me thinking about whether I can lend my tactical sensibilities/strengths to my writing practice. In other words, approaching projects as a series of short-term goals and obstacles that collectively create a medium-term success (i.e. a finished book), and that in turn contribute to a coherent long-term goal. To fight a series of self-contained battles, and in doing so win the war.

You know, just like in D&D.

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So what’s this all mean in real terms? Not sure yet. These notions of ‘tactical writing practice’ and ‘a problem-solving approach’ are just words right now, and it’s going to take some more thinking before I can turn them into meaningful goals, plans and praxis. Once I manage that, I’ll talk about it more here.

In terms of concrete, short-term things though, the main one is that I’m putting aside the Sick Beats horror novel concept for a while. Not dropping it, not at all, but prioritising it for later (and taking some time to do fuller research for it). And I did sketch a quick theme/motif mind map for it yesterday to keep me going:

IMG_1492

(It makes sense to me, honest.)

Similarly, while I have some thoughts on a third (and final) Obituarist novella, that’s not on the cards for now.

Instead, what I’m going to focus on next, and stay focused on, is the next Ghost Raven novel, Raven’s Bones, and after that Raven’s Ashes. To continue with what I’ve started and develop the entire trilogy as a package now, rather than later on when momentum and direction is lost. I’m writing up an outline for Bones right now – the first time I’ve ever written an outline, and it’s kinda hard – and one that’s done, I’ll try to develop some intermediary goals and milestones that I can set as problems to be overcome while moving towards the end-state of a finished book that fits into a greater series framework.

This is all very Project Management 101, I know. But I do so love re-inventing the wheel.

Anyway, stories of radio pus and dubstep horror will return. Right now, I’m filling my head with masked adventurers, problematic teenage romance, angry punching and a major supporting character that’s a giant robot spider in a Dracula cape.

…see, I’m good at the imagination part. No-one can take that from me.

Categories
appearances ghost raven sick beats writing

Hey, remember me?

Tum te tum te tum…

…I’m sure there was something else I was meant to be doing…

…hey, what’s this note on my calendar…

OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO UPDATE MY BLOG FOR SIX WEEKS

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Okay, it’s not so much ‘forgot’ as ‘couldn’t spare the time’. The last six weeks have been heavily focused on doing my Raven’s Blood rewrites, which took significantly more time and energy than I expected.

But once I got past the first half-dozen chapters, which required the most work, I started picking up speed. The last two weekends? CRUSHED IT. Just blitzing through chapters, either because I’m so damn good at this or because the second half of the book was stronger than the first.

(Or because I just stopped trying HAHAHA no it wasn’t that.)

As a result of upping that focus through October, with only occasional breaks for roleplaying and getting drunk, the Raven’s Blood revisions are DONE. The book is DONE. My liver is DONE. A tan or grey-gold colour is DUN and okay I’ll stop now.

Anyway, that book is finished. It’s off being considered and read by TOP PEOPLE and we’ll see what happens with that. Hopefully it’s good news and I haven’t wasted three years and 85 000 words.

So what’s next? First up, GenreCon – I head up to Brisbane on Friday morning for a weekend of panels, networking and drunken karaoke, as well as catching up with a few of the friends I left behind when I moved to Melbourne lo these ten years ago. If you’re coming to GC, I’m the tall bloke with short hair and an occasional limp; feel free to stop me and berate me for being slack all the time. Or come to the two panels I’m on – ‘Indie tools for established authors’ (chair) and ‘True tales of indie publishing’ (panelist). That might be more fun.

Second, I’d be remiss if I didn’t plug Gods, Memes and Monsters, the new anthology out these last few weeks from Stone Skin Press. I have a story (sort of) in this 21st century bestiary, along with a wide and exciting variety of authors that I’m really pleased to be part of. Want to see what gorgons, manticores and (my contribution) the catoblepas are up to these days? Want to learn about modern creatures like meme mosquitoes and trashsquatches? This is the book for you. Read and be AMAZED.

Third thing… oh yeah, this blog (sigh). I know I’ve been slack – not just this last couple of months, but all year. Time has not been on my side, and the demands of my day job don’t always leave me with much energy in the tank come blogging night. But with two books finished this year – that’s right, you all forgot about The Obituarist II: Dead Men’s Data, but I didn’t – I’ve got some downtime coming back, and I’m gonna use it to jumpstart this here thing and yes I know that’s a mixed metaphor BACK OFF YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD

And finally – what’s next? What am I going to do once I come back from Brisbane, finish schmoozing and get through Silent Hill Downpour?

Start a new book, obviously.

This one’s a horror novel about a few things. Mad science, disease, audio engineering, bad romance, the layers of history, 19th century patriarchy, the consequences of bad decisions and my local dog park.

Here’s an image to inspire me (and you), courtesy of artist Simon Stålenhag.

And here’s the (provisional) first few sentences, which suggests a little something about the narrative voice:

Question: Do peacocks like dubstep?

Experiment: BAAAWWWWW WUBWUBWUBWUBWUB SQUAAWCK EH EH EH EH EH

Answer: I guess not.

It’s called Sick Beats, and I’ll keep you posted as it progresses.

Hopefully this one won’t take three goddamned years to knock over.

Back next week.

Honest.

Categories
ghost raven writing

Abel Wackets is a Jackanapes

As I revise, rewrite and generally tinker with the new draft of Raven’s Blood, one thing I’m paying particular attention to is the language – not my language, but the way my fantasy characters speak.

Okay, mostly the way they swear.

Raven’s Blood is set in a world that’s a bit like Elizabethan England with some more contemporary elements thrown in – plus magic and and superheroes and golem cyborgs and stuff – and so I’m using some sources of period language to add resonance, name items/activities and give the characters terrible things to say to each other. And tonight I wanted to share some of the best offenders with you folks.

I’ve drawn Elizabethan terms from a number of places, in particular Lisa Picard’s fantastic Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan England – but for the slang terms and dirty words, I’ve relied on this excellent website from the University of Tulsa. Here are some favourites from that source:

  • Apple-squire: Pimp
  • Bing a waste!: Bugger off!
  • Bousing ken: An ale-house
  • Clapperdudgeon: Chief beggar; a term of reproach
  • Pillicock: Penis; a vulgar term for a boy
  • Doddypol: A foolish person
  • Cocklorel: An insult of moral character
  • Jackanapes: A bestial insult
  • Eater of broken meats: An insult of social position
  • Hundred-pound: An insult of social position
  • One-trunk-inheriting: An insult of social position
  • Worsted-stocking: An insult of social position

The insults of social position are amazing.

My other major source of words is not Elizabethan but it is historical – Francis Grose’s 1811 hit The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, available on Amazon and also as a free text file from Project Gutenberg. This guide to early 19th century British slang is massive, engaging and filled with every word for prostitute you could ever desire, as well as a staggering number of slang terms for the vagina (referred to throughout as ‘the monosyllable’).

As it happens, I don’t have much need in my story of teenage female heroics and face-punching for either of those kinds of terms, but I do have a number of other favourite phrases and activities that I use in this book (and that I’ve dropped into other projects in the past, such as The Pirate’s Guide to Freeport):

  • Autem cackletub: A conventicle or meeting-house for dissenters
  • Bear-garden jaw: Rude, vulgar language
  • Deadly nevergreen: The gallows, the tree that bears fruit all the year round
  • Galimaufrey: A hodgepodge made up of the remnants and scraps of the larder
  • Grinagog, or the cat’s uncle: A foolish grinning fellow, one who grins without reason
  • Paper scull: A thin-scull’d foolish fellow
  • Sword racket: To enlist in different regiments, and on  receiving the bounty to desert immediately.
  • Word grubbers: Verbal critics, and also persons who use hard words in common discourse
  • Barking irons: Pistols
  • Abel-wackets: Blows given on the palm of the hand with a twisted handkerchief

There’s so much to love in The Vulgar Tongue, assuming you can get past all the casual misogyny and talk about arses.

Mind you, I have to be careful to use this kind of language sparingly; it’s a heavy spice and one that can quickly take you from ‘flavourful’ to ‘incomprehensible’ if applied too generously. Otherwise I’d write passages like this:

‘Ames-ace!’ the scurvy recreant spat as he pawed the bale of bones in the atrium of the bousing ken. ‘I’ll not be taken in by thy inkhorn words, Dibber Dabber. You’ve cogged me, you lily-livered coistril!’

The Upright Man smoothed his commission and toyed with the chive he drew from his farting crackers. ‘So God mend me, no need to cheer so glimfashy, cousin,’ he said. ‘Like you not the dice? Perhaps we could go bat-fowling instead – or I could nap the teize with veney stick, if that’s more to your liking, you spunger.’

If you read that you would think you’d had a stroke. Or that I had.

…although now I really want to know more about those farting crackers.

Anyhoo, that’s what’s amusing me this week – feel free to chime in with your own favourites.

Now back to it.