Holt comes to a halt

One of the biggest problems when you start writing yourself, at least for me, is that I can’t be as critical of other authors as I would be if I wasn’t writing :p Or maybe it’s just that I spend more time being critical because I write as well but don’t actually get anywhere 🙂 See, in the old days when I wasn’t watching what another writer wrote, I’d simply read a book, decide if I liked it or not and then move on to another book. If I liked the book I’d just read, then I’d read more by the same author, if not, then that is that. Now, there are so many shades of grey :p

I just finished Tom Holt’s "Here Comes the Sun" yesterday. I’d read his "Expecting Someone Taller" sometime before and I loved it. So, when I came across a bunch of Tom Holt’s a while back while book shopping, I had no hesitation in buying them. However, "Here Comes the Sun" kind of disappointed me. The thing is, it’s kind of difficult to put my finger upon it. Tom Holt writes well and there are many instances when I stop and say "Hey, I wish I could have come up with that" but the thing is that his way of being funny is kind of repetitive. The book is littered with funny sentences which go something along the lines of "he quivered like a bunny rabbit with a fever sitting on top of a running washing machine" (I made that up – that’s not from Holt … too lazy to get up and get the book :p). Individually, those statements are funny and I wish I could write half as well as that. But when you run into he did something like blah and she did something like blah and it was like blah over and over and over again, it becomes a bit monotonous. I still enjoy the individual sentences and the wit contained in them but overall, the book becomes a bit tedious. In fact, the book took me probably six months to finish :p

No, I’m not that slow a reader but I took a long break in between and then recently finished the last five chapters or so. IN doing so, I actually disocvered the best way to read the book – in small doses 🙂 I read a chapter each every day and finished it in five days! I will read the other Holt’s I’ve bought to see how his writing progresses since I believe "Expecting Someone Taller" was the earliest book and "Here Comes the Sun" comes next in order of publication. The other books I have from Holt are even newer. (Oh yeah, the title of the entry does not mean that my reading of Holt’s books have come to halt – just that my reading of "Here Comes the Sun" has come to a halt because I finished the book :p) But for the moment, I’m moving on to Pratchett again and am "Going Postal" :p

Maps and miscellanies

A couple of days ago, I came across Frappr while doing some web browsing and decided to join up myself 🙂 So I created a group for this site and put up up a map on the sidebar. Of course, it doesn’t seem to work too well since I can’t get the world beyond America to show up! Maybe there is no world beyond America? :p I honestly have no idea what is going on with Frappr but then again, my Net connection has been rather slow lately and so the map not showing correctly might be just a symptom of this overall issue.

Moving on, I constantly run into an interesting phenomena – the paranoia of authors 🙂 Now, given how many scammers seem to be out there and the variety of ingenious ways they seem to find to part poor, naive would-be authors from their money, you can’t really blame the authors for being imbued with a healthy sense of suspicion. But on the other hand, there can be such a thing as too much of anything 🙂

The problem is when instead of being simply wary, people start going down the "guilty until proven innocent" track. There is at least one writers’ forum that I’m part of where a publisher only has to come in and post that they are looking for submissions before the inquisition starts (and it’s not Spanish :p) You’d get a bunch of posts about how the said publisher does not have any sales or that they haven’t published anything recently or what not. Again, I can understand caution but every business has to start somewhere, right? A start up business is not going to have any publications to its credit. Does that automatically make it suspect? I for one, do not think so.

However, this is not to say that you should not proceed with caution in any dealings. Of course, this doesn’t apply just to writers but if you’re a writer, I guess you should be especially careful. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is :p If they start asking you for money, do some checking – no matter how trivial the amount or how reasonable the request. But, do not go around in fear all your life and do not stop submitting just because there are a lot of crooks out there 🙂

Writing and rewards

I found myself wondering today if writing is as rewarding as coding is 🙂 I do both but the thing is that recently, I have not had enough time and so I have to split my time between the two. I would work on one app, then write a story and then go back to another app and so on. However, the two do not come with equal rewards.

I code for the challenge. I like solving a problem and finding a way to do something that I had to do manually or finding a way to do something that I couldn’t do before. Most of my software applications were developed out of personal need. Of course, once I released the application, others have found it useful and have suggested features that I have added. Blog is probably the best illustration of this behaviour. Over the years, it has grown to have so many features that I don’t even use. But I like knowing that other people find it useful. However, I guess in the long run, I still develop Blog because I personally find it useful.

There’s this other app of mine Amanuensis, a writer’s editor, that I developed sometime back. I found it extremely useful in writing my first novel. Once I completed my first novel, I put Amanuensis development aside because I took the whole novel into Word and have been using Word since then to edit the novel and to write the several short stories that I have written since then. However, suddenly I find myself wanting to go back to Amanuensis and to finish the app and to add a few new features that I want it to have. Of course, to do that, I’d have to take time off from writing.

Now writing, that’s a lot more personal. I don’t think I write for enjoyment. I come up with the stories because it amuses me, true. But actually putting the story down on paper, stringing the words together – that’s work. So I write mostly because I want to publish and so, unlike with coding, there is no sense of achievement once I complete a story. The sense of achievement will be there when I actually get a story published. But before that, I have to go through the agony of waiting for a story to actually get through the submission process, the dejection of having a story rejected, the innumerable days of writing a new story, the weeks of revising the story and then going through the submission process all over again. I still find myself wondering if it’s really worth it … And I guess I will never know since publication is sort of an elusive dream :p

Sure, I’ve been published hundreds of times here in Sri Lanka and based on my publication history, I could probably get published here again without too much trouble. But now I want to be published outside Sri Lanka but that’s like starting all over again since nobody outside Sri Lanka really cares about your publication history in Sri Lanka :p But what happens once I get published once outside of Sri Lanka? I’ll want to get published again. And I’ll probably want to be published in different countries. And then I’ll want novels as well as short stories published. So it’s a never ending process with ever changing goals. Is it worth all that mental anguish? I really don’t know …

Limitations

I used to think that I simply wrote – that I could write anything. Then, when I started writing, my horizons shrank a little bit and I used to think that I could write science fiction. Yesterday, I realized that even in science fiction, that there are certain genres and sub-genres that I just could not write in :p

Is it a part of growing up when you find your limitations or is it just a sign of old age setting in because you find yourself trapped in a certain genre or in a labeled box? I am not sure. But what I did realize was that I am limited. I am limited by the type of tale I can tell and also by what I enjoy writing. I guess that last bit is the most significant. Sure, I can write in a different genre or in a sub-genre but I won’t enjoy it as much.

This all came about when I offered to help another writer with their book. This other person writes science fiction as well and so I figured that I should be able to pitch in and help. However, when I read the first couple of chapters of his story, I realized that I just couldn’t do it. It was science fiction but it was not something that I could get into. I also realized that I don’t like science fiction set in the world of today – at least, I don’t like to write it. I like creating an intricate society which is either an extrapolation of society today or one that is a "what if?" scenario. What if humanity didn’t go in for mechanical technology? What if evolution took us down a different path? What if most of humanity destroyed itself in a cataclysmic series of wars? That sort of thing …

In addition to that, I’m beginning to discover that I enjoy injecting humour into my stories. I enjoy making fun of my own characters. This kind of precludes a completely serious story. For instance, one of the short stories that I submitted recently was a rather serious and sentimental story. I had written that about five or six years ago. I like the tone of the story but today, I can’t think of writing something like that because I don’t think I can keep up the sombre mood. But then again, maybe I am wrong. How do you know what you can or can’t do till you actually try to do it? As John Locke keeps on saying in "Lost", "Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do!" :p

On the track of a submission

First of all, before I forget, if anybody needs an invite to Windows Live Messenger beta, I’ve got a few invites. So let me know 🙂 I kinda, sorta like it and the winks are amusing and since Microsoft has seen fit to give me a few beta invites, I might as well pass it along.

I submitted a short story to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. I first learnt of ASIM through Simon Hayne’s site. I came across Simon’s site while doing a web search for something else. Given that he is a humorous science fiction author, I tarried a while on his site. (Actually, I’d been to his site several times before but each time, I’d been there to look at one or other piece of his software and never noticed that he was a writer but once I did find out that he was a writer, I stayed longer :p) In his own way, Simon have been inspirational for me 🙂 I came across Simon’s site at a time when I had been querying agents about my novel for a while and had got nothing but rejections – on query. When I read Simon’s story and his long struggle to get published (before finally succeeding), I realized that perhaps I too could become published and that I had to learn to be patient …

Anyway, at that point I noticed that Simon was involved with ASIM but didn’t think anything more of it since I didn’t have any short stories for publication. Now that I’ve started doing short stories, I decided that I should give ASIM a try. I sent in one of my short stories at the beginning of the week and was told that it had passed the initial reading and is now in their submission queue. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed :p

The interesting thing about ASIM is their submission tracking system. One of the most agonizing things about submitting any work is the long wait involved – and the uncertainty. Sometimes, you don’t even know if they received your submission and you certainly don’t know what is happening with your submission. You know that you have to wait a month, or two, or three but beyond that, it’s all darkness. At ASIM, they make the wait easier for you 🙂 You get assigned a submission number and then you can keep track of where you submission is in the submission process. I really like that 🙂

In fact, I like how ASIM works so much that I think I’ll try submitting my novel to them next to see if they are interested in serializing it … or not 🙂

Publishing, pretensions and pusillanimous platitudes

One of the writing forums I habituate, Absolute Write, has a discussion about a PoD (Print on Demand) outfit called Heliographica Press. Now the folks over at Heliographica bill themselves as a "publishing company" and talks of several imprints they have etc. Their lowest package appears to be a setup fee of $240 and $5 a month after that. Quite a tidy sum to invest to see your book published. And the thing is, this amount is supposed to get you "marketing" by Heliographica. (And I’ll get to the relevance about "marketing" in a bit …)

Now Laurie and I have considered doing the same thing that Heliographica did – not bilk people out of money but provide a low-cost solution for people who do not know enough about self-publishing to get into PoD :p I wrote about it here in my blog and even received a query from somebody else who was interested. But what they were mostly interested in was the marketing aspect – like most writers, all they wanted to do was write and to leave the marketing to the publisher. Of course, being in Sri Lanka, we certainly would not have been able to provide any sort of marketing service and would not have offered the service in the first place. However, Heliographica does offer marketing but what appears evident from the posts at Absolute Write is that they have not followed through on their promise of marketing, not to mention publishing.

But the whole marketing thing is beside the point. What I find interesting is something in the discussion thread at Absolute Write. One of the people involved with Heliographica appears at Absolute Write and takes the opportunity to say that he’s left Heliographica but wants to sell the artwork he did for the Heliographica books to the respective authors for a negotiable fee. So first they bilk the people out of the money and don’t provide them with good service and then they split up and try to gouge more money out of the people separately? That’s not just dishonest but seems to verge on the criminal. I just can’t understand people like that. Is the money worth it to crush the dreams of so many? I hope for their peace of mind that it is … But then again, so many seem to find no trouble at all in sleeping well on a bed made up of the shattered dreams of others …

The unfolding of the new age

Recently, there was all that brouhaha over the Microsoft Origami project – basically an ultra-light (sic) device which weighs only 2 pounds or so (that’s about 1kg for the metrically inclined :p) and runs a version of Windows XP and can run MS Office. I believe the original Microsoft spec was to have a device which can run on batteries the whole day and could be carried anywhere with you – the truly portable PC. However, the original devices don’t seem to be anywhere close to the target in battery life since if I am not mistaken, they are supposed to have something like two and a half hours of battery life.

So what’s interesting about Origami? It’s the fact that a few people online have touted this as the next-generation writer’s tool. I have to laugh 🙂 Come on, there have been electronic writing tools around for ages. Sure, some of them are not as portable as others but even as far back as 1997, I remember using the HP Handheld PC. It ran Windows CE, folded up into about the size of your palm, ran for several days on one charge and had a tiny keyboard. I still remember typing out a story on it while waiting for a connecting flight in the Las Vegas airport terminal.

Then there is the Compaq iPaq. It fits in your pocket and again runs Windows CE and comes with Pocket Word. I’ve plugged in a foldable keyboard and have typed out stories on that too. Sure, it’s not as good as the HP Handheld since the foldable keyboard needs a really flat surface but still it works as a writing tool. Heck, I’ve even written a couple of poems and songs using the touch-screen on my Sony Ericsson P800 – but a writing tool it’s not. Perhaps if you added a bluetooth, keyboard, it might work better 🙂

But why go to such lengths? There are such perfectly good writing tools like the AlpahSmart line of products. They are lightweight, easy to use and the battery lasts much longer than two and a half hours :p If you like the AlphaSmart range, then there’s also QuickPad.

Basically, there are a heck of a lot of alternatives out there for writers to keep writing on the go. (And I’m not even going to touch on traditional pen and paper here – mostly because I can never write unless I have a keyboard in front of me :p) But the Origami just does not look like the kind of tool I’d want if all I want is a way to keep writing on the go. It’s just too expensive, power-hungry and as yet, untested for it to be something that I *have to* have. Perhaps a few years down the line, once the product has matured, it will be the writer’s tool of choice. But not just yet …

Silence *is* golden

Laurie and I are back to being the only people in the house 🙂 Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed having our niece and nephew over but it’s almost impossible to get any writing done with "Pooh’s Heffalumph Movie" or "George of the Jungle" or even "Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" playing in the background. Instead of being transported to the world of my story, I end up in the jungle with George, telling him to watch out for that tree :p

Now that we are all alone, I’m able to go back to the world of my story and imagine things as they should be. I’ve already got about a page done today. The story is a long ways away from being done. I just started on it and am on the third page at the moment. However, I’m kind of hoping that I’ll get this one done much faster now that I can concentrate fully on it.

Sometimes I find myself wondering if it is worth it to write another story when I haven’t sold the first one – my first short story (at least my first in a long time and the first one I seriously wanted to consider publishing) is still out there. I have not heard from the people I submitted it to yet but then again, they did mention that it would take about three month’s for a response. I guess I could simply sit there waiting to see what the response would be but I just don’t feel like doing that 🙂

If this was a novel, I probably would be more concerned. A novel takes a lot more time and effort to write and I just don’t see the point in going to all that effort if it is not likely to go anywhere. Sure, the main reason for writing must be for oneself – if you don’t enjoy writing, then you shouldn’t be doing it. But on the other hand, I can enjoy the stories in my head without going to all the trouble of putting them down on paper :p So the only reason to put them down on paper would be if there is a possibility that others might enjoy it too 🙂 But then again, that’s just me …

Anyway, the new short story is humming along and hopefully, I can get it done by about the end of the week. I still have no idea where this story is going. All I know so far is what will happen in the next two or three pages. Once those events actually transpire, the characters will decide where it goes next 🙂

Things to do and places to be …

With people in the house (rather than just the two of us) the days are blending into one rapid blur which is becoming rather alarming in a way. We left on Friday morning (since Friday is my day off) for a bout of shopping and did not return till late in the day on Friday. I think we bought over 60 DVD’s in one day alone :p The rest of the day was spent in simply cataloguing all the DVD’s we’d bought.

Yesterday went by so fast that I didn’t even have time to turn around. I didn’t make my usual blog entry because I just didn’t have the time and then on top of it all, I’ve been falling behind on my writing as well. It’s really hard to concentrate with the TV blaring on one side, a child asking questions and so many things going on around you. I really envy Louis L’Amour who said that he could sit in the busiest plaza in the world, have hist typewriter on his knee and be able to hammer out a story :p Actually, I’ve done something similar and so, I guess the problem isn’t crowds but having people around that know you and can interrupt you 🙂

Today’s been another whirlwind day and I have only been up for a couple of hours! A friend of mine is getting a new dedicated server for his site and he’s been kind enough to invite me (at least the virtual me :p) to take residence on his server. I’m still not certain when/if I will move but I’ve been working on setting up his server, ensuring things are shipshape and generally making sure that it will be secure and functional. That’s been taking up a bit of time since yesterday. I still am in the process of doing some of the stuff there and have some questions about a few things since this is a slightly different environment than I’m used to. So lots of stuff to do but not much in the way of writing :p

And off we go …

I have actually started work on another short story 🙂 I am not getting all that much done what with work, too many people in the house, a really bad heat wave going around and so on but I did manage to write almost one page yesterday :p

Yeah, I know. That’s not much. But the good thing is that the story does seem as if it will start to move once I get out of this lethargy :p The thing is, in the old days, when I actually wanted to write short stories, I would come up with a surprise ending or some grand idea and then then try to write a story around it. What used to happen was that I’d fizzle out since I wouldn’t have anything to support the grand idea – no action, no character interaction, no nothing.

What I’ve discovered this time around is that I write better when I come up with a believable world or a society first. Then you plop a few characters in this world and give them a history and after that, all you need to do is sit back and let the characters do what they do and the story will take care of itself 🙂 Not sure if this method will work for everybody but for me, it works fine. I don’t really write the story – the characters do. All I do is sit back and enjoy the story as it develops and put it down on paper. Weird? Yeah, I guess it is :p

The last short story I wrote came out rather well because I came up with a science fiction world which had fantasy elements in it. The fantasy elements were not real (or rather unreal :p) but were explained in scientific terms. Coupled with the humorous bits that I like to throw in, the story kind of came together and I thought it was pretty good, even if it is only me thinking that :p I want to try something similar with this new story. I again have a (different) world where science fiction and fantasy elements come together and I have some (sort of) logical reasons for the world being the way it is. Of course, since I have only begun the story, I have no idea what will happen next or how it will go but guess the only way to find out is to keep writing :p