Secret Project

There’s a project that’s been brewing for the last couple of days.  Today, while working out some of the details, I stumbled into this.

Gnome Walking by John Huchthausen

Now my project is ultra-secret and totally going to happen.

More to report later.  Watch this site for updates!

Shakespeare Meets Black Adder

If you haven't watched the excellent Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie in the Blackadder series, give this a watch.  Then go watch the entire series.

You're welcome!

A Quick Note on Spears and Swords

Gil-galad is displeased.

After some discussions with various folk, I pulled together these quick notes on spears and swords:

Spears were the mainstay of most armies going back as far as, well, ever.  They’re easy to make (sharpen one end of a stick) and proved themselves right up until, and through, the start of gunpowder tactics.  They’re generally underrated by modern audience because swords are far sexier.  A sword represents an individual warrior’s strength, skill and power.  Spears are the same—just ask Gil-galad—but their greatest strength is when used in numbers. Spears, and their polearm variations, were easily the most common tool of a trained army.  They were favored by both infantry and cavalry making up the backbone of any fighting force. They're incredibly versatile, especially when in a tight formation providing both offensive and defensive advantages.  Because of this, almost all infantry were trained with shield and spear first and foremost.

Until modern times, the sword was always considered a backup weapon in pitched battle.  Yes, even by samurai.  The sword of an infantryman was usually a secondary weapon on a field of battle.  There are exceptions, like the doppelhander or zweihander a huge, double-handed sword that was used as a tool to defeat polearm formations.  However, the doppelhander functions similarly to a halberd which would essentially replace it for practical reasons.  Otherwise, the sword was a secondary weapon to the spear when it came to the clash of armies and kings.  With a strong defensive formation, it's a simple matter to thrust or drop your spear and draw your sword to continue the fight. This was part of the training of most infantry units, and why they are so effective.

The First Shelf

Now that's some shelf space!

Some first time writers are confounded, confused and bewildered by the sheer scale of sitting down and crafting a story from whole, virgin nothingness.  It’s a daunting task that, for the uninitiated, can seem daunting, if not downright impossible.  Back in the bad-ole/good-ole days before the internet, it could be even harder to get started.

But here we are.  You’re reading, and I’m writing and we’re as close as two people can be who aren’t actually sitting across from each other at a table sipping hot chocolate.

(It’s rainy and cold today, which always puts me in a hot chocolate frame of mind.)

The first, best piece of advice that any writer will give to any new writer is that you must write.  If you don’t write, you won’t be a writer.  It’s right there in the title.

But then what?

Well, the honest, cold, brutal truth is that as a new writer, you’re not very good.  Oh, you may have the genetics, or the soul, or the supernatural ability of a thousand reborn writers coursing through your veins (and seriously, can you hook a brother up?), but in this reincarnated life, you’re still a newborn in swaddling.  You’re going to be good.  You’re going to be great!  You aren’t right now.

You need help and hope and help.

Find it.  Find a couple of friends who are willing to read your writing and give you good, strong, honest, brutal feedback.  Find a writing group where you feel comfortable discussing process and obstacles and issues.  Find a writing process that you like, possibly from an author you admire, and engage.

You tell 'em!

Then shelf your first draft.

Don’t kill that book.  Rather, finish it, put it on the shelf and leave it there.  Let it get good and dusty.  Work on a second book.  When that’s done, put it next to the first and work on the third book.  All the while, you have test readers and beta readers and reading groups answering your questions and giving you advice (some good, some not applicable).  When you've done all that, come back to your first book, pull it back off the shelf and start the editing the process.

You'll be amazed.  With time, experience and knowledge, you'll find that you've grown as a writer, that you know how to handle obstacles and issues better, and that you can communicate the story in a more advanced and competent manner.  The core concepts of the story will remain usually remain unchanged, but the way in which you tell the story will be better.

Xavi's Fourth

Birthday's are serious business!

The first few birthday parties for children are never really for the children.  They get stuff all the time, and really don’t have much in the way of desires.  Most of it is lost on them, and it’s more of an excuse for friends and family to come together and enjoy the traditional smashing of the cake.

But by the fourth birthday or so, they’re starting to realize that these are events that mean something.  If nothing else, it means you’re pretty certain to get a big slab of cake no matter how good you’ve been.

Instead of throwing big parties, we’ve started making birthdays more of an event.  For Xavi’s birthday this past weekend, my parents came into town.  We did some cake and a few presents the first night.  The next day, we got up and took the family to Polly’s Pies (mmm, biscuits and gravy!)—restaurants are almost bearable with the boys, but not this time.  We managed to get out of there on speaking terms with management, and made our way over to the Orange Empire Railway Museum.

This weekend was especially groovy because they were doing a Civil War reenactment, and they had their steam locomotive out for the last time this season.  Only Porter knew who President Lincoln was, but I was pretty in awe of him.  He was taller and thinner than I am, and he and Mary Todd really seemed to know their character history.

Thirty-seven vampires in one day.  I asked.

But the absolute best was this morning.  As I was driving the boys to drop them off before school, Xavi piped up in the back and said, “Thanks, daddy, for my book about me and Bear on Crabby Pond.”  Amid all the other exciting presents (including a Kid’s Kindle Fire), it’s nice to know that this one stood out—at least this morning.

We’ll see how long that lasts.

Rules, Rules and More Rules

As with any writing forum when a question of “rules” breaks out, you’ll generally end up with several stock responses from Random Internet Guy who gives the canard: “The only rule is there are no rules.”

Yeah, man, it’s like, why live your life by a structure that’s only designed to keep you down?  The workers control the means of production, man.  It’s the corporations, dude, Big Pharma and the Pentaverate who put a chemical into KFC chicken and make you crave it fortnightly!

But even the Dude will abide.

You need to know the rules because that’s what writing is.  Writing is a means of communication from me to you (and you and also you).  Rules put us all on the same page and clarify the communication so we can understand what the hell you’re on about!  You certainly can break the rules—once you know them.  This is why people ask questions about the rules.  They’re looking for knowledge and structure so they can make a decision about how to use them.  Breaking the rules willfully is an act of artistic independence. Breaking the rules ignorantly is, well, an act of ignorance.  It can even make you look silly and foolish.  If you know the rules, then you can decide which rules are important to you, and which ones you’re going to kick to the curb.

Writers.  Aren't we all?

To this end, I offer you the advice of buying and keeping on the shelf at least one style manual.  Depending on what you’re writing, either The Chicago Manual of Style (currently, the 16^th edition) or The Associated Press Stylebook (currently AP 2015) for their formatting guidelines.  Mostly The Chicago Manual is for fiction writers, and AP is for magazines and newspapers (online or print).

There aren’t heaps of difference between the two, and there’s plenty of crossover, so if you’re working in both areas, you don’t necessarily have to change your style.  The point is to be consistent in your writing, which is the key to communication.  If a reader knows what you mean by a certain phrase, acronym, or abbreviation, then it doesn’t necessarily need to be italicized with a proper parenthetical citation.  If an editor comes back with a contradiction to a particular style book—so what?  That’s likely the publisher’s particular version of that style, and it doesn’t impact your work to adhere.

Lack of consistency looks lazy, unprofessional and can cost you a gig.  An author who can show strong consistency and adherence to a style—yes, even breaking the rules deliberately—shows value in the craft and discipline.  

Crush that writing, see it driven before you and hear the lamentations of its grammar!

No Politics Today

I was going to post up something political today, but then I realized I did that yesterday.  So instead, here are my boys playing at the Orange Empire Railway Museum with their friends: