It’s ten days until SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB is officially published! I figured I’d count down until the big day with a series of blog posts on books, writing, and maybe the odd story. Yes, folks, this may be the only time in my life that I blog ten days in a row.
Today I’m starting with the five best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received.
1: Everyone is the hero of their own story
Yes, you have a hero for your book. Maybe more than one. But they are not the only heroes. Every single character who appears in your book has their own story and they are the hero of that story. That spear-carrier who blocks your hero’s way at the castle gate? She’s not there for the benefit of your hero. She’s there because she’s living her own story. And in that story she is the hero. She’s got ambitions and frustrations, wants, needs, fears, hopes. If you know what those are, she isn’t a cardboard cut-out. She adds to the story.
The same goes for your bad guy (if you have one). They didn’t go out that morning deciding to be evil and make life difficult for your hero. They think they are doing the right thing, for themselves, even if not for anyone else. They have their reasons and their motivations. Know what those are and you’re well on the way to a rich, three-dimensional story.
(Advice from: George R.R. Martin)
2: Cut 10%
When you’ve finished your book, revised it, polished it, and made it perfect, go back and cut 10% of it.
I’ll admit, when I first read this advice, I was massively skeptical. If anything, I thought, I needed to add to what I wrote, to flesh out scenes and characters. Well, I did have to flesh out some parts. But my editor told me I had to make my book shorter, too. And you know what? She was right.
Even though I thought the book was as tight as I could make it, when I approached it knowing I had to reduce it in length, I found it wasn’t as tight and efficient as I thought it was. There were redundant words and sentences, even whole scenes that just didn’t have to be there.
So give it a go. When your book is done, cut another 10%.
(Advice from: Stephen King)
3: Every Scene Should Do At Least Two Things
It’s easy to write a scene that does one thing, advances the plot or changes your protagonist or reveals something about your world. But a scene that does only one thing is flat and boring. It’s the kind of handle-turning writing that leaves a reader feeling underwhelmed.
But make that scene do two things – creating an arc for your protagonist and moving the plot on, for example – and make those two things be intertwined and then you’re flying.
(Advice from: Nalo Hopkinson)
4: Coincidences Are Bad
In real life, coincidences happen all the time. Unless you believe that every part of everyone’s life is controlled by some external force and we are but will-free puppets, then coincidences are a part of life.
But not in stories.
If you solve a plot or character problem through a coincidence, your readers will throw your book across the room in frustration, and rightly so.
There is one circumstance where you can have coincidences in stories, though, and that is where they make things worse for your protagonists. The coincidence where they bump into the person who has all the answers? Nope. The coincidence where they bump into an enemy looking to waylay them? Yep. Make things hard for them!
The only coincidences you should have are bad coincidences.
(Advice from: Connie Willis)
5: What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, ask yourself in every scene, “What’s the most awful or embarrassing thing that can happen to my hero?” And then make it happen.
Humiliate them. Drop them into hell. Make everything go horribly wrong. In each scene, your character should have to deal with the disaster created in the previous scene and then something even worse should happen. Rinse and repeat, and at the end, you’ll have a book. (Obviously, your hero will have to win eventually (unless they don’t), but not until the end.)
The kind of story where your character drifts through easy successes is the story that nobody is interested in.
(Advice from: Stephanie Burgis)
That’s it. The five most useful pieces of writing advice that I have ever received. They might not all work for you, but if you’re wondering why your story doesn’t work quite as well as you were hoping, give them a go. You might be surprised.
I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time. If you’ve never actually tried to get a book published, you might not realise just how long it can take to get it out there. Here’s how it went for me.
I actually started writing the book in late 2007 and finished the first draft in May 2008.
Then, what with revising, querying agents and more revising, submission to editors and more revising, selling to wonderful editor Christy Ottaviano, and much more revising, plus publishing schedules, production, getting illustrated and designed and all of the rest of it, it will be finally published in January 2016, just over eight years after I started it.
Not all books take this long, of course, but some can take even longer.
Sometimes I get questions about how I came up with the idea for SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB, and I want to say, It was almost nine years ago! I have no idea!
The truth is, like most of what I write, it kind of condensed out of a whole cloud of ideas, images, inspirations and random chance. I can point to a whole bunch of influenced:
Watching Pride and Prejudice with my wife (the Colin Firth version, of course)
Dinosaurs! (Lots of old pulp SF stories had dinosaurs. We need more of them!)
An obsession with Ancient Egypt
Too many years studying physics at university
Probably a whole bunch of things I’ve forgotten
What I ended up with is a thrilling adventure story set on Mars in 1816, full of weird inventions, strange creatures, mummified dragons, an alien culture, and a very proper Regency British society.
The great thing about writing something like this, particularly for a Middle Grade audience, is that there’s genuinely no idea that is too outrageously out there. As long as you can make it work coherently, you can have clockwork robots, pterodactyls, dragons, and pretty much any alien creature your imagination can come up with. You can throw in heart-stopping adventures, desperate peril, and funny characters, and you don’t have to care about whether it’s proper literary or fashionably cynical. You can just make it fun! Man, I love this kind of stuff!
I was dangling from a rope, fifty feet up the side of a great pillar of red Martian rock, with my arms buried in a sopping curtain of tanglemoss and bury-beetles trying to build a hill over my head, when I finally realized I had chosen the wrong summer vacation.
My friend Matthew, Viscount Harrison’s son, had invited me to spend the summer with him. But no. I’d decided to come home instead.
What an idiot.
Right about now, Matthew’s family would be settling down for their tea or going for a quiet stroll in the warm afternoon air. In the evening, when the glitterswarms rose from the depths of the Valles Marineris to spread like a cloth of gold across the sky, they would raise a toast to King George, like any normal family on British Mars.
What they would absolutely, definitely not be doing was swaying dangerously halfway up a giant stack of rock, hunting for an angry bushbear.
This hadn’t exactly been my plan when I got up this morning.
What I had planned was to get my latest copy of Thrilling Martian Tales, lock my bedroom door, and be left alone until lunchtime. I’d finished my chores and even made a great big “Do Not Disturb” sign for my door to keep my little sister, Putty, out.
In the last issue of Thrilling Martian Tales, Captain W. A. Masters, British-Martian spy, had been left hanging by one hand from a mountain temple while the tyrant’s dragon swooped down upon him.
I’d hardly been able to sit still all month, waiting to find out what would happen in the next issue. If I had been Captain Masters, I would have waited until the dragon was almost upon me, then launched myself onto its neck, clambered onto its back, and battled the tyrant riding it. But Captain Masters always did something unexpected. Today, I would find out what.
Or I would have, if our malfunctioning ro-butler hadn’t wandered off, taking the mail with him.
I caught up with the ro-butler just in time to see him coming down the attic ladder carrying three parasols and a wig stand, but no mail. So, with a sigh, I climbed up into the horrific chaos of our attic to see where he might have put it.
I didn’t find my Thrilling Martian Tales, but what I did find was an infestation of crannybugs. The tiny creatures had snuck in during the night and built their little glass palaces under the rafters. Now they were hanging out their miniature silk flags. Soon, they would be multiplying.
I put my head into my hands and groaned.
Matthew had every issue of Thrilling Martian Tales, back to the rare issue no. 1 with the free clockwork death spinner that Captain Masters had used to destroy the Emerald Tyrant’s flying palace.
I’d never even read that issue. And there wouldn’t have been any crannybugs in Viscount Harrison’s house. If there had been, I wouldn’t have had to deal with them. Viscount Harrison’s valet would have sent out to Isaac’s Xenological Emporium for a consignment of catbirds to chase the crannybugs right back out of the attic. Or, if Isaac’s was out of catbirds, he might have sent the automatic servants up to the attic, armed with dusters and drills, to clear away the crannybugs’ palaces, and hope the creatures would leave in a huff.
But no. Here I was instead, while my family tootled about in their own little worlds, leaving it all to me.
Any normal family would do something that would actually get rid of the crannybugs, before they ate completely through the rafters and collapsed the roof down on top of us all.
Not my family.
My family is not good at that kind of thing. They wouldn’t notice the crannybugs until the house collapsed and they were sitting there in the dust and rubble, wondering what had happened.
Which left it to me to save us all from complete disaster, as always.
That was why, an hour later, Putty and I found ourselves on top of one of those pillars of rock, searching through the thick curtains of tanglemoss for the only thing — other than a catbird — that could clear out an infestation of crannybugs: a bushbear.
The bushbear is an evil-looking creature, all spikes and tongues and damp, moldy fur. It lives deep in the wet, slimy folds of tanglemoss, only peeking out at sundown with tiny, bloodshot eyes. If you can drag it into the daylight, it curls up tighter than a hedgehog and you can take it back with you to deal with the crannybugs.
Bushbears try to eat crannybugs, but that’s not what bothers the crannybugs. What they really don’t like is the bushbear’s horrible appearance and general bad temper. Put a bushbear nearby, and the crannybugs get so offended they move out.
Of course, first I had to find one, and that was turning out to be harder than I’d hoped.
From up here on the pillar of rock, I could see the whole of Papa’s estate. The house itself was a great, sprawling mess of a building on the shores of the Valles Marineris. To either side, thick stands of fern-trees whispered and chattered to each other whenever the wind blew, but in front of the house, the lawns stretched down to the water, and good English oaks lined the drive.
Right now, the lawns were being covered by stalls and trestle tables for Mama’s long-planned garden party, which was due to take place tomorrow afternoon. Ridiculous, fake native Martian hovels were being erected on the edge of the fern-trees, and workmen were arguing over the half-finished, towering dragon tomb that Mama was having built beside the water’s edge just for the party. Beside it, a steam lifter stood motionless, its enormous arms spread wide, puffing steam from its mouth into the clear sky.
The dozens of pillars of Martian rock behind the house formed a maze of gullies and dead ends. Mama had wanted them flattened so she could have a proper, carefully designed wilderness like the one on her father’s estate, but Papa wouldn’t hear of it.
Which was a good thing, because without the pillars, the blankets of tanglemoss wouldn’t grow, there would be no bushbears, and we wouldn’t be able to do a thing about the crannybugs that would soon collapse the house around our ears.
So, as I said, Putty and I were on top of a pillar of rock. Although, when I said “on top,” I meant Putty was on top, looking after the rope, while I swung halfway down with the rope around my waist, clawing through the thick moss.
I tried to imagine myself as Captain W. A. Masters, battling my way to the lair of a tyrant of Ancient Mars. Except Captain W. A. Masters would have a helichute or sharp-clawed grip-gloves and would swing easily down the precarious rock face. He certainly wouldn’t have to rely on Putty keeping him safe.
There’s something you should know about Putty. First, her name isn’t Putty. She’s my little sister, and her name is Parthenia, but “Putty” fits her far better. Putty is nine years old, three years younger than me. She is incredibly enthusiastic and as impressionable as wet putty. Show her a new idea, and she’ll throw herself into it like a diver from the top of a cliff.
A month ago, for instance, she met a photonic mechanician and spent the next few weeks poring over books about photonic capture and emission devices. Before that, she read an article by the celebrated xenologist Frank Herbert Kynes and decided to dedicate her life to the study of sandfish. She even got halfway through building a sandfish containment tank in the corner of her bedroom before she encountered the photonic mechanician. And before that… Well, you get the idea. Right now, Putty had decided she was going to be Papa. This was one of her more common obsessions. At least once a year, she turned herself into a little doppelgänger of Papa, complete with tweed jacket, disheveled hair, and eyeglasses she didn’t need, to Mama’s complete despair.
The other thing you need to know about Putty — and this one is much more important — is that she’s very easily distracted. Which might make it seem odd that I would be hanging fifty feet up in the air, suspended only by a rope that Putty was looking after. Well, it was odd. But the chances of me being able to persuade either of my older sisters, Olivia and Jane, to do anything so improper and unladylike were slightly less than zero.
Which left me with Putty, who was at least enthusiastic.
“I say, Edward.”
I shoved my way free of a fold of tanglemoss and shook the damp from my face. Putty was looking down at me.
“Are you holding that rope?” I shouted.
A guilty look crossed Putty’s face, and her head disappeared. A moment later she reappeared. “Yes,” she called.
“What is it?” I said. I dug one hand deep into the tanglemoss, just in case.
My lovely editor, Christy Ottaviano, sent me through the full jacket of SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB: front cover, back cover, spine, and internal flaps all in one lovely, lovely image. I think it’s absolutely awesome. I love all the little details like the airships holding up the text panels. The art is by Jeremy Holmes (who also did the internal artwork, which is just as awesome) and the cover design is by Eileen Savage. (TBH, I don’t know exactly which of them did exactly what on the cover, but clearly they are both incredibly talented!)
While we’re at it, here’s one of the interior illustrations, showing Cousin Freddie inspecting a mysterious invention, the water abacus (click on the picture to see it larger):
Reviews
A week or two ago I put up an extract from the School Library Journal review of SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB, but I didn’t put it all up because it wasn’t online. Well, now it appears to be Amazon and everywhere else, so I might as well share it here:
“Twelve-year-old Edward Sullivan wishes his life on 19th-century British Mars were more like the adventures he reads about in his Thrilling Martian Tales magazine. Sadly, it’s school break and instead of being off with his friend Matthew Harrison, he’s staying home trying to keep his family on track. His father is a brilliant yet absent-minded mechanician, and his mother’s main concern is gaining back the family status she lost when her own father lost the family fortune. When dim-witted cousin Freddie literally comes crashing down, Edward wonders how much worse things can get, but before he knows it, he is tangled up in a madcap adventure with even more action than his magazines.
“It seems that Edward’s father’s latest invention, the water abacus, is thought to be the key to perhaps one of the last of the great dragon tombs of Mars. In the past, it was these tombs that held the wonderful Martian technology that enabled British Mars to thrive—and made the tomb explorers rich. There are many who want to use the water abacus for their own purposes, which leads to fights, kidnappings, attempted murder, and a great chase. All of this is set in a perfectly delightful steampunk and fantasy world complete with clockwork automatic servants, dragon paths, and spaceships. Deeper topics of race relations and colonization are deftly explored through the political unrest among the British, the French, and the Martians.
“VERDICT A smart addition for middle grade collections; be prepared to purchase planned sequels.”
And while we’re at it, here’s an extract from the ALA Booklist review:
“Engaging characters and an action-packed plot are bolstered by some meaningful observations on Martian colonialism … this will appeal to fans of zany adventure tales.”
Giveaway
And, in case you missed it, I’m giving away a SIGNED ARC (ADVANCE READER’S COPY) on Goodreads.
2016 is almost upon us (no, really…) and that means a whole new year of awesome, awesome new middle grade books.
All these awesome books will be out soon!
These are all books by debut authors, which is doubly, triply awesome.
So here are a few details of the books:
Bounders, by Monica Tesler
Published: January 5th, 2016
Twelve-year-old Jasper and his friends are forced to go up against an alien society in this first book in a brand-new adventure series!
Thirteen years ago, Earth Force discovered a connection between brain structure and space travel. Now they’ve brought together the first team of cadets, called Bounders, to be trained as high-level astronauts. But Earth Force have been keeping secrets, and when Jasper and his friends find them out, they have to decide whether to rebel against the academy that brought them together or fulfill their duties and protect the planet, no matter the cost.
Ten-year-old Manami did not realize how peaceful her family’s life on Bainbridge Island was until the day it all changed. It’s 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Manami and her family are Japanese American, which means that the government says they must leave their home by the sea and join other Japanese Americans at a prison camp in the desert.
A moving debut novel about a girl whose family is relocated to a Japanese internment camp during World War II–and the dog she has to leave behind.
The year is 1816, the place is Mars. Home of pterodactyls, spies, and clockwork butlers…
All 12-year-old Edward Sullivan wants is to read his Thrilling Martian Tales in peace. But when a villainous archaeologist kidnaps his parents, Edward and his sisters must set out across the Martian wilderness to save them.
Together they must evade ruthless foes, battle mechanical nasties, and escape deadly Martian hunting machines. If they can’t, they will never uncover the secrets of the dragon tomb and rescue Edward’s family.
SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB is a thrilling, action-packed adventure story, full of humor, wild inventions, and terrible danger.
Fenway and his beloved short human, Hattie, are the perfect pair. She loves romping in the Dog Park, playing fetch, and eating delicious snacks as much as he does.
But when they move from the city to the suburbs, Hattie starts changing. She hangs out in a squirrely tree house. She plays ball without him. What could be happening?
Crushed and confused, Fenway sets out on a mission. He’s going to get his Hattie back and nothing will stop him.
The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price, by Jennifer Maschari
Published: February 23rd, 2016
Ever since twelve-year-old Charlie Price’s mom died, he feels like his world has been split into two parts. Before included stargazing and Mathletes and Saturday scavenger hunts with his family. After means a dad who’s completely checked out, comically bad dinners, and grief group that’s anything but helpful. It seems like losing Mom meant losing everything else he loved, too.
When he follows his sister into a magical world he finds it is identical to their own with one key difference – Mom is alive. But this idealized other world holds terrifying secrets, and he’ll have to defeat monsters both real and imagined or risk losing himself, his sister, and the true memory of his mother forever.
The Last Boy at St. Edith’s, by Lee Gjertsen Malone
Published: February 23rd, 2016
Seventh grader Jeremy Miner has a girl problem. Or, more accurately, a girls problem. Four hundred and seventy-five of them. That’s how many girls attend his school, St. Edith’s Academy.
Jeremy is the only boy left after the school’s brief experiment in coeducation. And he needs to get out. Jeremy takes matters into his own hands: He’s going to get expelled.
Together with his best friend, Claudia, Jeremy unleashes a series of hilarious pranks in hopes that he’ll get kicked out with minimum damage to his permanent record. But when his stunts start to backfire, Jeremy has to decide whom he’s willing to knock down on his way out the door.
Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them…
While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she’s never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge. But as the summer wears on and the heat bears down, Carol finds herself drawn to him, fascinated by the crazy stories he tells her about a healing tree, a green-glass lake, and the bees that will bring back the rain and end a hundred years of drought.
The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, by Laura Shovan
Published: April 12th, 2016
When fifth graders learn that their school will be torn down and replaced by a supermarket, they take their teacher’s 1960s political teachings to heart and fight to save it.
Told through the poems of the eighteen students in fifth grade, the book follows each of them as they grow up and move on through the year.
When eleven-year-old Thyme Owen’s little brother, Val, is accepted into a new cancer drug trial, it’s just the second chance that he needs. But it also means the Owens family has to move to New York, thousands of miles away from Thyme’s best friend and everything she knows and loves. All Thyme can do is count the minutes, the hours and the days, and hope time can bring both a miracle for Val and a way back home.
My Seventh-Grade Life in Tights, by Brooks Benjamin
Published: April 12th, 2016
All Dillon wants is to be a real dancer. And if he wins a summer scholarship at Dance-Splosion, he’s on his way. The problem? His dad wants him to play football. And Dillon’s freestyle crew, the Dizzee Freekz, says that dance studios are for sellouts.
But as Dillon’s dancing improves, he wonders: what if studios aren’t the enemy? And what if he actually has a shot at winning the scholarship?
Today I woke up and realised that it’s just three months to go until SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB is officially published.
Ulp.
I totally wasn’t expecting this. In my head I had at least five months to go. Now it’s just three and IT’S NOT ENOUGH! I have this vague idea that I should be doing promotion, guest blogs, interviews, that kind of thing, but I haven’t thought about it at all!
In the meantime, a few reviews have started to come in for the book. Here’s what Kirkus Reviews had to say:
What, ho! This classic boys’ adventure on Mars has dastardly villains, dizzying feats of derring-do, and dragons.
Twelve-year-old Edward knows he’s the mainstay of his family. Absent-minded Papa thinks only of his inventions, Mama and sister Jane are bubble-headed social climbers, Olivia is a priss, and bratty little Putty follows Edward about, stealing his copies of Thrilling Martian Tales and having the absolute gall to be the clever one. Luckily Edward’s here to be the man of the house, especially when useless Cousin Freddie turns up on a busted cycle-copter. Why is Freddie acting so shifty? Why won’t he explain his absence from Oxford (on Earth!) instead of being a botheration at Edward’s crannybug-infested Martian home? Why does he want to see Papa’s water abacus? And why does his arrival immediately precede a series of home invasions by a nasty lordling and a metal-faced assassin? Samphire is clearly having the time of his life with this yarn, leavening character types with emotional honesty. It’s true Putty has most of the cleverness, Olivia the diplomacy, and Freddie the swashbuckling—while Edward gets knocked unconscious three times—but it will take all of them to save their family.
A bit Tom Swift-meets-early Heinlein (though without most of the -isms of those dated classics), joyfully modernizing space pulp for a new audience. (Science fiction/steampunk. 10-12)
And here’s an extract from the School Library Journal (it doesn’t seem to be online right now, so I probably shouldn’t post the whole thing yet!):
All of this is set in a perfectly delightful steampunk and fantasy world complete with clockwork automatic servants, dragon paths, and spaceships. Deeper topics of race relations and colonization are deftly explored through the political unrest among the British, the French, and the Martians. VERDICT A smart addition for middle grade collections; be prepared to purchase planned sequels.
It’s swimming lesson time. Seven-year-old MrD is in the pool. Two-year-old MrX is up in the viewing gallery with me. I’ve had an idea for a story. I remembered my notebook and pen (for once). MrD is looking up at the viewing window. He’ll know if I’m not watching him. MrX is making a run for it. He finds this hilarious. Somehow I scratch out a couple of lines while chasing. Not sure I’m going to be able to read this later.
It’s early morning. For once, MrX didn’t wake up in the middle of the night and it’s my morning “lie-in” (my wife and I alternate) so I get up early to try to get a bit of writing done. Okay, I’ve only had four-and-a-half hours sleep, but that’s actually pretty good. I grab some breakfast. Too late! The boys are awake. MrD is tired. He wants a family breakfast. “I need my daddy” he shouts, grabbing hold of my legs and not letting go. By the time it’s done, it’s time to get them ready for school / child-minder and drive them off.
We’re hosting a children’s party. We haven’t cleaned the house for weeks. There’s so much chaos everywhere, you couldn’t fit a spare sock in most rooms, let alone eight hyperactive children and their parents. Writing time? Not this week.
MrX is up half the night, throwing up. It’s 2 a.m. and I’m scrubbing carpets with only a few hours until I have to get up again.
You’d have to be mad to have children as a writer. They eat time and energy. They’re brain leeches. They’re not going to listen to “I have to go and write”. And even if you sneak away, your brain is so addled how on Mars are you supposed to hold all those things you need in your head? Plot, character, theme, voice, good writing. You’re supposed to balance them all, intertwine them, tie them together. Even one of those is way too much for a child-sapped brain. You don’t even remember the last thing you wrote or who all those characters are or what’s going on.
I’m driving to school with the kids in the back. “Tell me a story,” says MrD, just like he does every day. So I do, just like every day. Stories of Captain Monkey and Queen Alora (with her pet T. rex), of the upside down land on the far side of the world, of dragon mountain and secret doors hidden in trees that lead deep into the Earth, of Evil Dr. Baddie, the raptor scientist, of adventures and exploration, of time tunnels and alien worlds.
Telling stories to a child as you drive to school makes you an agile storyteller. You don’t have the luxury of choosing your favourite cafe or putting on your playlist or making green tea. You don’t have time to think or plan. You don’t have time for outlines or inspiration. You have to get going, right now. “Let’s have wolves and a baby dinosaur,” he shouts as you’re half way through a story, and so you do. “Why don’t they do a spell to open a door?” “Why doesn’t he get kidnapped by monkeys?” “An earthquake!”
You’re never going to get that kind of enthusiasm from any other reader, the shining eyes, the excited bouncing in the seat, the full-on, undivided attention.
“Let’s write a book together!” he says.
“Your book is the best book ever!”
He proudly puts his copy of your book on his bookshelf, even though he’s too young to read it. He stares at the words and the cover and the illustrations. He wants to know what you’re writing next. He wants to write a sequel.
And two-year-old MrX, who has only managed a handful of words, trundling toward you, clutching a book, shouting “Ree! Ree!” (“Read! Read!”)
You’re a zombie. Your brain is 90% sludge and 10% caffeine. You forget why you walked into a room or where you’re driving to. You don’t even remember the last time you had five hours sleep. (Hell. You don’t even remember yesterday.) Writing comes in stolen moments when you really, really just need to slump onto your bed.
But it’s all made up for when your kid says, “Write me more!”
Being a parent and writing (and having a day job) is hard. Far harder than you’d guess before you have kids. Without kids, you’ll be far more productive. You may even write better. But you probably won’t write happier and your stories won’t matter anywhere near as much.
This was written as part of a Parenting And Writing/Editing Blog Tour. Here are links to the other blog posts so far in the blog tour. (I’ll add more as they happen.)
I don’t know how many of you do this. You know how it is when you’re working on a novel (or maybe you don’t) and you don’t have much free time. You need to get into the right headspace as quickly as you can. For me, the best way to do it is by coming up with a playlist of songs for each particular book.
I don’t always choose songs that fit thematically with the book I’m writing (I wrote one whole book listening a single song, Blind in Texas, by W.A.S.P. on repeat, even though neither blindness nor Texas featured in any way in the actual book.)
For the book I’m writing now, tentatively called The Mystery of Firelake Hall, though, I’ve come up with a list of songs which all, in some tenuous way at least, link in to the themes or events of the book. Here it is. Ten points if you can figure out the themes of the novel from this. (And what do points mean? Well, pretty much nothing. Have ’em anyway.)
The songs are:
7 Days to the Wolves – Nightwish
Empire of the Clouds – Iron Maiden
Coming Home – Iron Maiden
Paschendale – Iron Maiden
Beyond the Realms of Death – Judas Priest
Tears of the Dragon – Bruce Dickinson
Wish I Had an Angel – Nightwish
Les Morts Dansant – Magnum
So, what do you reckon? And does anyone else use playlists?
If it’s not hard enough to write a straightforward, linear novel, Parker Peevyhouse has made it far harder for herself by writing a novel that is actually five interconnected novelettes. So it’s enormously to her credit that this book has turned out so well. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s the best YA novel I’ve read this year.
The first story is set right now (or very close to now) and the subsequent ones step into the future, developing the story up to some unstated point over a hundred years from now. Our universe has somehow intersected with another universe, and a very few people can cross between them, weakening the barrier between the universes.
Over the course of the five stories we experience the lives of different characters – some of whom are able to cross between universes and some of whom aren’t – as the intersection alters both universes, as technology advances, and as global warming begins to take hold.
So what’s so great about Where Futures End? Well, first up the structure is not easy to pull off. Different characters? Different time periods? Different voices? Not an easy thing to manage, but something that could go terribly wrong. Well, it doesn’t. It works beautifully, and rather than losing narrative drive, the end of each story leaves you wanting to read the next to add more pieces to the puzzle. Each adds another layer, revealing more about what was going in the previous stories while developing its own story.
Then there are the stories themselves. I’m going to come right out and say that the stories remind me a lot in style and type of many of the short stories that I’ve written, although these are more fully developed, and no doubt that makes them appealing to me. But each is a really well thought through glimpse of the future, rigorously developed, with compelling characters.
Ambitious. Clever. Gripping. You should add this one to your wish-list right away!
One of the most awesome things about SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB (in my opinion) is that there is going to be lots of internal art, not just sketches but really nicely created art by the same person who is doing the book cover, Jeremy Holmes.
Jeremy posted a photo of one of the completed art works a couple of days ago, so I’m sharing it here.
Ophir City, by Jeremy Holmes (Click on image for larger version)
This is a picture of the airship / rail terminus in Ophir City.
Tall, closely packed wooden buildings in the old Martian style clustered in unplanned confusion, their turrets, spirals, and spires prickling the air like an enormous, crazy hedgehog.
Clockwork Express tracks swept high over the hills to the west in a glittering bronze arc and plunged down to the city. Pillars every couple of hundred yards held the railway above the ground. In the morning light, the tracks shone like thread in the Martian sky.
– From Secrets of the Dragon Tomb
You really should look at the art close-up (click on the image!) because it’s absolutely gorgeous. And, of course, get the book when it comes out for plenty more. :)
You know how it is when you stumble out of bed after only a few hours rest because the kids wouldn’t go to sleep, and you’re busy trying to spoon caffeine directly into your veins, in between getting breakfast for the family, trying not to put milk in the kids’ sandwiches, and wondering why no one seems to have any actual pairs of socks despite you buying new ones only last week, then you’re trying to remember to drive to school, not into a ditch, and then you get back and you’ve got an hour to write before you have get on with other stuff? You know that, right?
Somehow, you’re supposed to insert yourself into a completely new world, full of fully-formed people getting up to all sorts of nonsense and knock out a whole bunch of shiny words. Yeah.
Right then, inspiration is not exactly in great supply. But you’ve got to find it anyway.
That’s where Pinterest comes in. It gives you the chance to pull together a whole bunch of visual cues that I can look at to take me into whatever world I need to be in. Here’s the board I created for SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB and its sequel:
The moment I look at this, it tells me the mood and tone I want for the books and it puts me in the headspace I need to work on them. Not all the pictures represent any particular character or scene in the books, but they connect me to the books and that’s what I need.
Anyone else use Pinterest for this? Or do you use it to find ideas in the first place? Or for something else entirely? Whichever, if you do, post a link to your boards. I’d love to see them.
