Saturday, February 4, 2012
Where Do You Get Your Ideas? A Panel
As a follow up to my class this morning, this Wednesday, Feb 8, at 6pm I'll be moderating a panel discussion at the Orange County Library in Hillsborough, joined by fellow authors A J Mayhew, John Claude Bemis, Natania Baron, and Ed and Janet Howle. These authors represent a wide range of ages and genres, so there should be something of interest in the discuss for all readers and writers.
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
This morning, I taught a class on creativity at the Orange County Library.
These are my class notes:
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
(And what to do when you find one.)
The Warm Up Exercise
The story of your morning:
You got up this morning and came to the library. Woo! Exciting stuff.
Rewind. Tell us about the amazing exciting thing that happened to you on the way here.
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
(And what to do when you find one.)
The Warm Up Exercise
The story of your morning:
You got up this morning and came to the library. Woo! Exciting stuff.
Rewind. Tell us about the amazing exciting thing that happened to you on the way here.
(in this exercise, the students were encouraged to tell elaborate fibs about their journey to class)
Part One:
How important are ideas?
The Paradox of Ideas
Truth #1:
Ideas are the key element of any story.
Truth #2:
Ideas barely matter at all with successful story telling.
Why?
When I say ideas are the key, I mean it in the sense that you already have a million stories locked inside you. Without the spark of an idea, you have no way of getting through the locks of your imagination to the treasures inside.
A good idea is absolutely meaningless if you don’t have the tools to develop your initial concept into a compelling story. Beginning writers often feel that a fresh, clever idea will be essential to breaking into publication. In reality, good execution of an old, even stale, idea is a far more certain path to publication. If you need evidence, go to Barnes and Noble and count the number of books about vampires.
Exercise:
Think about a favorite work of fiction.
What do you think was the central idea the creator wanted to convey?
Does the idea matter most to you, or the storytelling?
Part One:
How important are ideas?
The Paradox of Ideas
Truth #1:
Ideas are the key element of any story.
Truth #2:
Ideas barely matter at all with successful story telling.
Why?
When I say ideas are the key, I mean it in the sense that you already have a million stories locked inside you. Without the spark of an idea, you have no way of getting through the locks of your imagination to the treasures inside.
A good idea is absolutely meaningless if you don’t have the tools to develop your initial concept into a compelling story. Beginning writers often feel that a fresh, clever idea will be essential to breaking into publication. In reality, good execution of an old, even stale, idea is a far more certain path to publication. If you need evidence, go to Barnes and Noble and count the number of books about vampires.
Exercise:
Think about a favorite work of fiction.
What do you think was the central idea the creator wanted to convey?
Does the idea matter most to you, or the storytelling?
(In this exercise, the students think about the ideas behind favorite stories as well as the execution of those stories and see how they are or aren't connected.)
Part Two:
Creativity is a muscle.
cre·a·tiv·i·ty
The Dictionary Definition:
the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc
What it actually means in real life:
the ability to see the connections between things that most people don’t recognize as being connected related.
There are no wrong ways to get ideas.
There plenty of ways to avoid them, however. A passive approach to a creative life is likely to produce the same results as a passive approach to physical fitness. The mental muscles of your creativity must be exercised daily to stay trim. Generating ideas isn’t something that can be done only when you carve out a little extra time to do some thinking. It’s something that you must actively pursue at every opportunity.
How I personally gather ideas:
I steal them.
I constantly wage war upon my ignorance.
I keep a messy desk. Throw nothing away!
I look for the everything in anything.
An Exercise in Theft
First, a word about copyright and the public domain…
Pink Card = A famous character
Yellow card = A famous place, fictional if possible
Blue Card = A period of time
Green Card = Something with a strong smell
Part Two:
Creativity is a muscle.
cre·a·tiv·i·ty
The Dictionary Definition:
the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc
What it actually means in real life:
the ability to see the connections between things that most people don’t recognize as being connected related.
There are no wrong ways to get ideas.
There plenty of ways to avoid them, however. A passive approach to a creative life is likely to produce the same results as a passive approach to physical fitness. The mental muscles of your creativity must be exercised daily to stay trim. Generating ideas isn’t something that can be done only when you carve out a little extra time to do some thinking. It’s something that you must actively pursue at every opportunity.
How I personally gather ideas:
I steal them.
I constantly wage war upon my ignorance.
I keep a messy desk. Throw nothing away!
I look for the everything in anything.
An Exercise in Theft
First, a word about copyright and the public domain…
Pink Card = A famous character
Yellow card = A famous place, fictional if possible
Blue Card = A period of time
Green Card = Something with a strong smell
(For this exercise, students filled out their cards with the items above, then collaborated with their table mates to build a story from the combined items, for example
Robin Hood, the Emerald City, Chinese New Year, a bouquet of roses. )
Robin Hood, the Emerald City, Chinese New Year, a bouquet of roses. )
On the Art of Lighting Candles in the Dark Void of Your Ignorance:
Before the end of the day, eat something you’ve never eaten before.
Before the end of the week, seek out some local culture that’s new to you.
Before the end of the month, read a book on a subject you know nothing about.
Before the end of the year, visit a state or city you’ve never visited.
You can only write what you know. What you know is limited only by your curiosity and drive.
Ideas Must Breed
A single idea is a sad thing. I suppose single ideas can sometimes give birth without mating with another idea, like some parthenogenetic lizard of literature. But, for most ideas to bear offspring, they must breed with other ideas.
Keep a journal of your ideas. Paper is the way to go! When you’re stuck, read your journal.
Talk with other writer. Don’t be afraid of having your ideas stolen! The more you give, the more you will receive.
Even if you can’t stand a messy desk, cultivate a messy mind. It’s important for the wildest, most unrelated concepts to bump into one another.
To write Greatshadow I had to know about: Jungles, volcanoes, oceans, casinos, biology, botany, religions, mythology, fishing, alcohol, cooking, anatomy, Eskimo lore, weaponry, whaling, dream symbolism, love, rejection, ambition, failure, life, death, and the correct verb to use to describe being thrown from a window.
The Everything in Anything
The most mundane object you can lay your hands upon is composed of the remnants of dead stars.
A cup of coffee contains within it the entire history of mankind.
It’s not just Kevin Bacon connected to everyone else in the world.
Writing is revelation.
Exercise:
? is like ?
Life. Death. Justice. Love. Family. America.
(Here, I passed out random objects like a toy bulldozer, a flashlight, an empty envelope, a package of crackers, a leaf, a seashell, a plastic dinosaur, etc. and asked students to explain how their objects were a metaphor for the concepts above.)
Part Three:
I have an idea!
Now what?
Ideas are nothing but flashes of light on the film of your mind. No one can see them until they are developed.
Once you have an idea, turning it into a story is easy! Wait, did I say easy? Because it’s actually kind of a pain. Turning an idea into a story requires many long hours with your butt in your chair fighting to put the concepts in your head onto paper.
But, even before you start writing, here’s a checklist you can follow to know if your idea is growing into a story or not.
A Simplified Checklist of Story Development:
Do I have a:
Character?
Setting?
Plot?
Check these boxes and you’re home free!
Character.
A literary character is a disembodied simulacrum of a human being.
To pass as a real person, he or she needs:
Personality
History
Relationships
Tastes
GOALS. Goals, goals, goals, goals, goals.
Optional but useful traits are:
Physical attributes
Symbolic elements (for instance, a meaningful name)
Distinctive speech patterns.
Setting.
A literary setting is an figment of imagination that’s confused for a real place.
To aid this confusion, a setting should have:
Light – Noise – Scent - Texture
Optional but useful traits are:
Geography – Architecture - Culture
History - Weather - Cuisine
Symbolism
Two Tricks of the Trade:
Setting is back story.
A character’s body can also be a setting
Plot.
A literary plot is a set of fixed, unchanging words that simulate the passage of time.
To create the illusion of movement through time, a plot needs:
Direction
Misdirection
A destination
Obstacles
Life is just one moment after another. A plot is one eventful moment after another. More importantly, a plot is one meaningful moment after another.
Part Three:
I have an idea!
Now what?
Ideas are nothing but flashes of light on the film of your mind. No one can see them until they are developed.
Once you have an idea, turning it into a story is easy! Wait, did I say easy? Because it’s actually kind of a pain. Turning an idea into a story requires many long hours with your butt in your chair fighting to put the concepts in your head onto paper.
But, even before you start writing, here’s a checklist you can follow to know if your idea is growing into a story or not.
A Simplified Checklist of Story Development:
Do I have a:
Character?
Setting?
Plot?
Check these boxes and you’re home free!
Character.
A literary character is a disembodied simulacrum of a human being.
To pass as a real person, he or she needs:
Personality
History
Relationships
Tastes
GOALS. Goals, goals, goals, goals, goals.
Optional but useful traits are:
Physical attributes
Symbolic elements (for instance, a meaningful name)
Distinctive speech patterns.
Setting.
A literary setting is an figment of imagination that’s confused for a real place.
To aid this confusion, a setting should have:
Light – Noise – Scent - Texture
Optional but useful traits are:
Geography – Architecture - Culture
History - Weather - Cuisine
Symbolism
Two Tricks of the Trade:
Setting is back story.
A character’s body can also be a setting
Plot.
A literary plot is a set of fixed, unchanging words that simulate the passage of time.
To create the illusion of movement through time, a plot needs:
Direction
Misdirection
A destination
Obstacles
Life is just one moment after another. A plot is one eventful moment after another. More importantly, a plot is one meaningful moment after another.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Dragon Sighted in Natural Habitat!
Cheryl's coworker Lisa Vlastellica spotted Greatshadow today on display at Quail Ridge Books on Wade Avenue in Raleigh and was kind enough to snap this photo. This is the first reported sighting of this book in its natural habitat of a book store.
As one might discern by looking at the photo closely, I'll be at Quail Ridge on Friday, February 10 to sign copies of Greatshadow. While the book is officially released tomorrow, I'm calling the tenth my book launch. There will be dragon cookies and possibly a cake with the book photo.
It's a relief to see the book in a bookstore at last. I've been a bundle of nerves all week about the release tomorrow. I started working on Greatshadow back in the summer of 2009. It both exciting, frightening, and a little surreal to know that the book is finally out in the world for readers to find.
Monday, January 23, 2012
The Year of the Dragon!
I wish I could say I was clever enough to have arranged for my Goodread's Greatshadow giveaway to have purposefully ended yesterday so that I could announce the winners today at the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Dragon. On the other hand, I'll take the serendipity of the development as a good omen.
I'm going to be doing my best to be making this my own personal Year of the Dragon. I'm still tapping out chapters on my first draft of Witchbreaker and am already daydreaming heavily of books that follow it. I pretty much wake up thinking about dragons and go to sleep thinking about them. Perhaps I even dream of them, but I seldom remember my dreams. Perhaps my slumbering thoughts are devoured by nocturnal dragons. Imagination would be an appropriate diet for a primal dragon of nightmares. Hmm. I could totally turn that into a book.
Back to Greatshadow: One week from tomorrow, the book hits shelves. I'm weirdly nervous about it. I mean, this is my fifth novel to see print, and at any given time there's at least one or two anthologies in bookstores that contain a story by me. I've reached a point where it's entirely possible for me to go in and out of a bookstore without looking to see if my books are in stock. But, there's something different about Greatshadow. I've taken some real gambles with the book in terms of style and subject matter. I feel like I should take some gambles with selling the book. I just want to go stand in the isles of bookstores and shove copies into the hands of anyone who makes eye contact and say, "Here! Read this book!"
Which, actually, is kind of what I'll be doing on February 10 at 7:30 at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. I'm having a book launch for Greatshadow. I'll read a little from the opening, take some questions, then sign books. Also, I'll be bribing the audience with dragon cookies. (Did you know you can buy dragon-shaped cookie cutters? I didn't until quite recently. Is this a great country or what?)
Anyway, back to the giveaway: I launched the giveaway hoping I might interest a few hundred readers. Some of the other epic fantasy novels that had drawings going on had 400-500 entries. I told myself I'd be completely satisfied if I got 300 entries.
I wound up with 807 entries. Yowza. I'll give thanks to both Gerard Miley's cover art and, of course, the positive energy that flowed throughout the universe as the Year of the Dragon approached.
The winners are:
Cristen Ferguson
Heather Fourman
Brandi O'Bannon
Randy Smith
Ambereen Khan
Norma Navarrete
Melissa Alles
Margaret Scheiner
Ashley Keith
Donna Montgomery
Congrats, all! I'll have these in the mail to you tomorrow!
I'm going to be doing my best to be making this my own personal Year of the Dragon. I'm still tapping out chapters on my first draft of Witchbreaker and am already daydreaming heavily of books that follow it. I pretty much wake up thinking about dragons and go to sleep thinking about them. Perhaps I even dream of them, but I seldom remember my dreams. Perhaps my slumbering thoughts are devoured by nocturnal dragons. Imagination would be an appropriate diet for a primal dragon of nightmares. Hmm. I could totally turn that into a book.
Back to Greatshadow: One week from tomorrow, the book hits shelves. I'm weirdly nervous about it. I mean, this is my fifth novel to see print, and at any given time there's at least one or two anthologies in bookstores that contain a story by me. I've reached a point where it's entirely possible for me to go in and out of a bookstore without looking to see if my books are in stock. But, there's something different about Greatshadow. I've taken some real gambles with the book in terms of style and subject matter. I feel like I should take some gambles with selling the book. I just want to go stand in the isles of bookstores and shove copies into the hands of anyone who makes eye contact and say, "Here! Read this book!"
Which, actually, is kind of what I'll be doing on February 10 at 7:30 at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. I'm having a book launch for Greatshadow. I'll read a little from the opening, take some questions, then sign books. Also, I'll be bribing the audience with dragon cookies. (Did you know you can buy dragon-shaped cookie cutters? I didn't until quite recently. Is this a great country or what?)
Anyway, back to the giveaway: I launched the giveaway hoping I might interest a few hundred readers. Some of the other epic fantasy novels that had drawings going on had 400-500 entries. I told myself I'd be completely satisfied if I got 300 entries.
I wound up with 807 entries. Yowza. I'll give thanks to both Gerard Miley's cover art and, of course, the positive energy that flowed throughout the universe as the Year of the Dragon approached.
The winners are:
Cristen Ferguson
Heather Fourman
Brandi O'Bannon
Randy Smith
Ambereen Khan
Norma Navarrete
Melissa Alles
Margaret Scheiner
Ashley Keith
Donna Montgomery
Congrats, all! I'll have these in the mail to you tomorrow!
Friday, January 13, 2012
Goodreads Greatshadow Giveaway!
At last! I arrived home yesterday and found a case of Greatshadows! I was starting to worry I wouldn't see any actual copies of the book before it turned up in bookstores. With the release date only a little more than two weeks away, I'd hoped to start giving away copies weeks ago, but better late than never!
For advance readers who were promised copies last month, be patient, I'll start mailing out those copies next week.
For anyone who would still like to get their hands on a free advance copy, I'm pleased to announce my first ever giveaway through the worlds largest website for book reviews and recommendations, Goodreads. Ten copies will be given away through Goodreads from readers who sign up for the give away by January 23. This particular giveaway is limited to US readers; I'm investigating arranging a giveaway in other countries, so if you're one of my international fans, stay tuned!
If you're not a member of Goodreads, signing up is easy and free. To enter the drawing, visit Goodread's Greatshadow page.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Tune in to The State of Things!
Tomorrow (Wednesday 1-11) I'll be a guest on The State of Things on my local NPR station, WUNC. The show broadcasts live at noon, though I think I'll be on during the third segment of the show, probably closer to 12:40. The show also rebroadcasts each night at 9pm, and can be streamed live from the WUNC webpage. Archives of old shows can also be found there.
I'll be talking about my two latest releases, Burn Baby Burn and Greatshadow, telling the stories behind the stories. Tune it tomorrow!
I'll be talking about my two latest releases, Burn Baby Burn and Greatshadow, telling the stories behind the stories. Tune it tomorrow!
Monday, January 9, 2012
Nobody Gets the Reviews!
Back in 2000, when I sat down to write Nobody Gets the Girl, I was unaware of any stand-alone, original superhero novels that had been written since the 1930s. Prose superheroes had a good run in the pulp era, but once comic books and superheroes became almost synonymous the only superhero novels published in recent decades were either liscensed stories featuring comic book properties like Batman and Superman, or else the shared world Wild Card novels.
Nobody hit book stores as part of an early wave of independent superhero novels, but, in 2003, you could have collected all these novels onto a single smallish bookshelf. But, in the last few years, superhero novels have experienced a grand awakening, facilitated in part by the ease of self-publishing on Amazon. Now, dozens of new ones turn up each month, more than I can keep track of.
Fortunately, there is someone out there who is keeping track of these things: Eric Searleman and his website SuperheroNovels.com. And, while his focus is on new releases, I'm honored to report that he today published a review of Nobody! My favorite line from the review is his description of my protagonist, where he captures the fan-boy geek at the core of the character: "The guy is an invisible horndog. And if you think about it, that pretty much describes most of the men who attend the San Diego Comic-Con. They’re all invisible and they all want to sleep with sexy superheroes."
And, as long as I'm talking about reviews for Nobody, a second one also turned up last week at a blog called JohnnySaturn.com. It's just a brief mention on his way to talk about other stuff, but he does say "that this is the best superhero prose I’ve read since August Grossman’s 'Soon I Will Be Invincible.'"
Not a bad way to kick off 2012!
Nobody hit book stores as part of an early wave of independent superhero novels, but, in 2003, you could have collected all these novels onto a single smallish bookshelf. But, in the last few years, superhero novels have experienced a grand awakening, facilitated in part by the ease of self-publishing on Amazon. Now, dozens of new ones turn up each month, more than I can keep track of.
Fortunately, there is someone out there who is keeping track of these things: Eric Searleman and his website SuperheroNovels.com. And, while his focus is on new releases, I'm honored to report that he today published a review of Nobody! My favorite line from the review is his description of my protagonist, where he captures the fan-boy geek at the core of the character: "The guy is an invisible horndog. And if you think about it, that pretty much describes most of the men who attend the San Diego Comic-Con. They’re all invisible and they all want to sleep with sexy superheroes."
And, as long as I'm talking about reviews for Nobody, a second one also turned up last week at a blog called JohnnySaturn.com. It's just a brief mention on his way to talk about other stuff, but he does say "that this is the best superhero prose I’ve read since August Grossman’s 'Soon I Will Be Invincible.'"
Not a bad way to kick off 2012!
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