Doodling

In a post a couple of weeks back, Kate talked about “practice pieces.” Pieces you write and feel free to be as out of it, or as in it as you wish because no one will ever ever ever see it. She also said if you don’t have a practice piece going, you should try to get it.

Now, those of you who know of my strong and indelible aversion to writing only for myself are probably thinking “Ah, bet you Sarah doesn’t have a practice piece.”

You would of course be wrong. Sarahs are that way. This particular Sarah has several practice pieces, ranging from snippets that will never go anywhere to fully developed short stories, to partial novels. I don’t have a finished novel, but I have novels I could finish given a couple of days.

Practice pieces – that are started knowing they will never see the light of day or at least never see the light of day in their present form – are things that I’m not sure I can pull off; I’m sure I can pull off but sure I can’t sell; sure I can pull off AND sell but don’t want associated with me, even at the remove of a pen name (or two.)

They are the equivalent of doodling pieces done by artists, which are never going to interest anyone unless you happen to be Leonardo DaVinci.

So, you’re wondering what is the difference between these pieces and stuff you begin and never finish, the never ending bits and pieces that all of us have in file cabinets, on our desks, or in our drive?

Well, practice pieces are sort of part of a pact with yourself. You save them to a special place, perhaps. The fact you know no one will ever see them but you allows you to try things without your friends/editors/fans thinking you’re stupid or not competent or sick or... I often use my practice pieces to experiment with extreme situations and see how far I can push things before I break a character, for instance. Also to feel the power in that sort of situation and figure out how to harness it for others.

Now, mind you, some of my stories do move from the private file – particularly the ones that are fine, but don’t have a market. Markets change. But at that point they must be stories I’m no longer working on, so I don’t feel like I violated my own trust. (Be still. It’s weird in here. If it’s not weird behind your eyes, you’re not a writer.) At that point it is the equivalent of taking a sketch and fleshing it out into a painting.

But most of my stories in the practice file will remain in there forever, safely locked up.

So, do you have a practice file? What do you keep in it? (General, not violating your own privacy.) Do you find it useful? Would you consider having one?

Weather in Books

It might sound like a funny topic, but I'm in Brisbane and right now we're under a flood warning. It looks like it will be higher than the 1974 floods, which were supposed to be a one in 100 year event.

I remember the '74 floods. I was visiting my cousin in Dalby (which is currently cut in half by the river) and I was isolated there for a week or so. Being a young teenager I thought it was all very exciting.

My grandmother's mother remembered the flood of 1893, which were apparently higher than the '74 floods. She said the graveyards were washed away and coffins floated down the Brisbane river.

Fast forward to this morning. My son works in the city and his office sent everyone home because they expect the Brisbane River to burst its banks. We've downloaded the maps of the '74 floods and it looks like the end of our road will go under but we'll be OK.

There's been flash flooding in the catchment area for the Brisbane River. One town had an 'inland tsunami' right through the middle of the main street. There are 9 dead and around 60 people missing (figures vary). The Prime Minister has been on the news offering her condolences and promising to send in the army.

Being a writer, it occurred to me that we rarely see extreme weather events in books. You do get storms at sea (I have one in The Outcast Chronicles which I'm working on now), and you'll get the occasional blizzard. I have a fantasy novella doing the rounds at the moment based on research I did of the '54 flood of the Murray river, where the water came up to people's roofs. The flood is integral to the plot. Don't know how the novella will go. They are hard to sell but sometimes a story will be the length it wants to be and there's nothing you can do about it. In King Rolen's Kin, I used snow to shape how the people lived.

Can you think of any books where the weather was used to shape events and characters' actions?

In the Marketplace of the Blind

It's been one of those days when focus is hard to find. I started my day by hearing my older son is coming to the Island to get married in July, so, while that is a glad note, it's also not been good for the thoughts about blogs and writing. This is the reality of the working writer - real life intrudes, and I think it worse than the real life intrusion of say such an event on an office worker, because fortunately, office workers leave the cubicle behind when they come home. Writers never really do, unless real life is being too darn pushy for its own good.

A discussion I was peripheral to a while back focussed on e-book covers. A lot of things came out of this which I think worth summarising. It was fairly plain that there was considerable sexual dimorphism in what people liked see on covers. To my unholy amusement I found covers with bare-chested well-muscled strong-jawed men were a biggy with a vast majority of the female respondents. I wondered what the reaction to the opposite gender equivalent would be, but for a change kept my yap shut. Still, it was plain that faces (and manly upper torsos) - which told little about the story were popular with the female respondents, whereas scenes/objects (and possibly female torsos) were more interesting to the males. Of course this is a generalisation, totally unscientific and very subjective and who gives a damn, but worth thinking about, as, after all, the purpose of the cover is to get a reader to look at the book. We are not selling covers.

A couple of other things that really did come out strongly were the need for text to be legible at thumbnail size, relatively simple if they're to carry visual impact at that size, and that print needs to be in stark-contrast colors and the covers really really do need a look of professionalism about them. Oh and information is important 'short story / short story collection /part of the Lanata series etc' is vital. I've decided that one of my future conditions for e-books is more control over my covers and getting them professionally laid out -- simply because I believe this is important.

But I don't believe it is MOST important. We're moving from a small highly controlled-stocking visual/tactile market with an intrinsically captive audience once they got there (the brick-and-mortar bookstore) to a vast - millions of times the size - totally free-for-all stocking market in which our view is so darn narrow... we may as well be blind, and there is no real tactile element at all, and where the audience can find ONE book without noticing another product. So where COVER and DISPLAY were the two absolute vital keys to brick-and-mortar bookstore success, we move to a situation where cover is a lot less likely to get your book noticed. Display is of course still vital but may be more tricky. I have a feeling that display in future is going to work (sadly) like display past - publishers will pay for prominence. However, the ordering of importance and therefore logically investment (by author and publisher) will change. In the Internet bookstore I rank them like this:
1)Name. Known names/brands/ series will be searched for. Your name and your title are your most valued properties.
2)Outside feed. If you have blogs/ facebook / twitter/ review sites feeding readers towards your book, it will be vital. Professional review sites may become more relevant than they are now.
3)Linkage. Both 'customers who bought X also bought Y' and linkage to type and ranking within type.
4)Searchable/matchable content (this one will move up as becomes better)
5)Publicity (this one could move up depending on expenditure. For example, spend enough and you make someone into a name, and generate outside feed)
6)Cover
7)Viewable/ sampleable content.

A book of course will need probably 6 and certainly 7 to convert 'look at' into BUY.
We're out of the sheltered, heavily controlled puddle and into a big wild ocean. Those who survive will have learn to work with the new waves and use their energy to lift them. Those who cling to rocks... will drown. The rocks may survive and surface at the next low tide, but authors who held on tight, won't be there. On the other hand there is a chance to grow into Leviathan out there, or at least to swim free.

Any other ideas on how to work with sea-change? To get yourself found in the marketplace of the blind?


Oh BTW - I have been following my books on the Amazon Author central - which gives bookscan numbers. DRAGON'S RING paperback - which came out on the un-enviable 28/12, data is a bit worrying. I think we can safely say DRAGON'S RING is simply not in - or in very very small numbers in most major chain stores across the US - it sold 171 copies in the last week (very poor numbers for a book just out), but only from 70% of the reporting areas. So if you happen to go into a store, and see it there, I'd love to know about it.
On the other hand SLOW TRAIN TO ARCTURUS - apparently voted one of the worst covers in sf, continues to sell (if Amazon is to be believed on 5th reprint -presumeably VERY small runs) 35 copies the same week reporting period - not bad for a book that's been out since March. So you can't judge a book by its cover...

New Years Begins With a Bang and a Whimper

Well, it's a new year and things have certainly gotten interesting quickly. Of course, for some that means interesting in the proverbial sense of the word. So, let's start with the elephant in the room and go from there.

The elephant this time is Borders. Or perhaps I should say the elephant is still Borders. The troubled bookstore chain started the New Year by laying off a number of high ranking executives. Then came the news that they had “stopped writing checks to key suppliers”. Going hand in hand with the latter was news that they were going to ask these same suppliers to push back payment dates for stock already on hand. What you have to remember is that these "suppliers" are the publishers. Publishers who are already feeling the pinch of fewer sales, the declining economy and such. Publishers who will be pushed by Barnes & Noble and other booksellers to extend the same concessions to them that they offer to Borders. Am I the only one who sees what a disaster this will be for all parties involved?

In related news, word of the probable implosion of Borders caused Credit Suisse to upgrade Barnes & Noble shares. In explaining this move, Gary Batler explained that B&N would benefit if Borders winds up closing all its stores. The increased sales for B&N should this occur is estimated to be 18% of Borders's sales. In the same article, it noted that since the introduction of B&N's ebook store, they have secured approximately 17 - 20% of that market, a much larger share than Borders which has no dedicated e-book reader coupled with a very late entry into the e-book market.

On the e-book front, USA Today reported that in the week after the holidays, e-books came out on top of print books. "E-book versions of the top six books outsold the print versions last week. And of the top 50, 19 had higher e-book than print sales. It's the first time the top-50 list has had more than two titles in which the e-version outsold print."

Does this mean we're at that tipping point yet? Possibly. If not, we are so close it wouldn't surprise me to see it happen soon.

Finally, a report has come out noting that students still prefer hard copy textbooks over digital versions. (Scroll down to Notes: Students Like Printed Text Books). Remembering my own student days back in the Dark Ages, I can understand. There is still something about being able to highlight and write in the margins...or to draw descriptive pictures of a certain professor that you just don't get with most e-book readers.

So, e-books are on the increase despite all the cries from traditional publishers over the years that they would be nothing but a flash in the pan. Borders is in serious trouble and that trouble is flowing right back to the publishers -- with potentially catastrophic results for some of those publishers. Are e-books to blame? No. Or at least not in the main. Mismanagement, over-expansion and failure to understand the changing demands of their customers are all to blame. Add in a sluggish economy, people who don't read as much as they used to -- and, sorry, I don't buy the argument it's because we get all our entertainment from TV, etc. A big part of it is because stores aren't stocking books we want to read and that is because management has gone to regional or even national purchasing instead of allowing mangers to stock what they know their customers want. A larger part of the blame falls onto the heads of publishers who stumble upon a best seller and then decide that readers want only that sort of book and so they push it at us until we quit buying. How many poor clones of The Da Vinci Code were there? Worse, how many sparkly vampires and emo werewolves have we been forced to endure of late?

To combat this trend, a number of small e-presses have emerged (and, in full disclosure for those of you who don't know, I'm the senior executive editor for Naked Reader Press. But I am also a writer, so these trends are important to me on both fronts.). Authors are starting to bring their backlist out in digital format. Why? Because it is answering a need the readers have been voicing for years, a need that has been denied for any number of reasons -- not always good ones -- by traditional publishers.

Where this will end, no one really knows. But the next few months/years are going to be exciting, scary and tumultuous in the publishing industry. What do you think will happen?

Impaler

This excerpt is the opening scene of Impaler. Final edits haven't been completed, so there will probably be some changes in the published ebook.

Enjoy!

Impaler

Chapter 1

Always before battle begins I am possessed by the need for solitude and prayer. It is a curious thing, for I have never fought as merely another knight. I first ruled men at the age of eighteen, when the old Ottoman Sultan Murad and his son Mehmed still thought I could be a Turk puppet.

Those who slander me say I care nothing for the fate of other men. They forget that those who rule by the Lord's grace are entrusted with the Earthly welfare of their subjects, and to some extent their souls. To take one's subjects into battle, however righteous the cause, ensures that they will sin. The burden of their souls falls upon me, their Prince.

I do not allow others to see my weakness. Few great lords care for the fate of those in their domains. That I of all men should do so would seem the most grotesque of jests. I, whose name echoes through Europe as a byword for atrocity. And yet, I am driven to pray for those whose lives will end on the battlefield this day, men whose only crime is to obey the commands of their lords.

Thus I walked through heavy mists in the Snagov marshes towards a hillock built by the monks to shelter their hermits from winter's worst. Mist beaded on the fine dark red wool of my coat and brushed cold and clammy against my skin. Around me my bodyguards ghosted through the marsh trees, soft-soled boots all but silent in the pre-dawn gray.

Only ten men of the two hundred my cousin Stephen had sent to my aid walked with me. Of all the forces I commanded this day, Stephen's two hundred were the only ones in whose loyalty I placed any trust. There had not been time to build forces of my own as I fought to reclaim my land from the Turk's puppets. My men were hirelings for the most part, bound by no oaths of fealty.

My goal emerged from the chill mist: a glade nestled against an earthen wall overhung with vines. It was a place sought by hermit monks for generations, and an air of peace and contemplation hung about it still.

I nodded to the nearest of my guards, and entered the glade. Another man might not have heard the whispers of movement, the sound of chain mail muffled by layers of quilted cloth. The curse laid upon me by Mehmed had its uses. I knew where my bodyguards positioned themselves, knew that they would give their lives to protect me should the need arise.

I knelt on a bed of fallen leaves, damp cold seeping through my pants to chill my legs. My lips moved without sound as I prayed. I begged mercy for those who would die this day, even those who fought under my traitorous cousin Basarab Laiota's banner. I asked no quarter for myself, nor for victory, for those matters lay in higher hands than mine. And finally, driven by what impetus I do not know, I prayed that if the Lord would not lift the Sultan's curse from me He show me a way to use the curse to further His glory.

How many times I begged that the curse be lifted from my shoulders I could not say. I can only say that this morning, as I prepared to face an army near twice the numbers of my forces, I begged instead that the Lord show me His will.

His answer came mere heartbeats after I stood, when I heard the whicker of a horse and the distinctive sound of metal against leather. My chest tightened and my hands clenched. I swallowed, and forced myself to show no sign of disturbance as I walked the few paces to Stefan, the captain of my guards.

"I heard horses and armor to the north," I murmured.

He nodded, and hastened to another man, who moved away in the mist. I waited, nerves drawn bowstring-tight, while the remainder of my guards joined us. They sensed the tension though they knew not its cause, loosening their swords in their sheaths, faces grim in the ghostly mists.

I drew my own sword, my hand settling comfortably around the worn leather wrappings on the hilt. This weapon had been my father's, a sword of the finest Toledo steel. Like him, I prized it for its strength and wicked sharpness as well as all it represented. How his faithful retainers smuggled it to me when he was murdered, I do not know. I was young then, too young to fully understand for I had never ruled, never known the bitter fruits of betrayal. Now I could only honor them for their courage and loyalty.

The scout returned, moving as quickly as he could without making undue sound. Though he whispered, I heard enough. At least fifty men approached from the north, men in the turbans of Turkish soldiers. It seemed my dear cousin Basarab lacked the courage to meet me on the field of battle and sought instead to murder me by stealth. The horses would be to ensure they could escape before any pursuit could be raised.

The captain swallowed when he turned to face me. "Sire, fifty men from the Turk army, leading horses. We must fight."

I nodded once. I and my ten guards were woefully disadvantaged, the Turks too close for a safe withdrawal. Had my curse-sharpened senses not heard them, they would have held the advantage of surprise as well. "Have your men draw weapons, and conceal themselves as well as they may. In this mist, we will be able to strike the center and send them into confusion."

"Sire... my Lord Prince... We can cover your retreat." The man's face had the calm, empty look of one who knows that death awaits, and has made his peace with his fate.

I smiled. Stephen's men deserved better than I could give them. "If I am not here, they will not allow you to hold them." I saw no reason to add that the rarely-used paths I had traveled to reach this place were unguarded. Better to draw the teeth of the snake here than to hide and allow brave men to die in my stead. "Go." I could hear the enemy more clearly now, whispered curses and the sound of wrapped hooves upon soil and leaves.

My guards melted into the mist, slipping behind tree trunks and bushy shrubs. I joined them without word, fighting the excitement that strove to quicken my breath. Soon enough there would be battle, and bloodshed aplenty to appease the curse. Now I could only wait.

Each breath seemed an eternity, those last few moments before our enemy emerged from the heavy mist stretching out into the everlasting wait. First they loomed as grotesque shadows, blurred darkness, then details began to emerge. Here, the shape of a horse's leg, there the glint of a drawn scimitar. They stayed close, horses and men breathing steam into the air, merging with the swirling shadows.

Their faces were grim, their turbans dark. They wore coats of all shapes and sizes, patched and worn and stained with the blood of former owners, for these were men who rarely saw the bone-aching chill of Wallachian winter. I smelled the oil they used in their hair and beards, the cleaner scent of horse, and shifted a little to ensure that they saw nothing of me as they passed us, alert but unseeing.

No signal was given, for none was needed. The rising tension in the bodies of my men, the quick flicker of their eyes as they checked to see how many had passed us and how many remained, gave the signal to all.

I leaped forward, my sword slicing across a Turk's unarmored chest as screams and shouts of alarm rose around me. Blood sprayed into the air, scarlet against the gray mists. My mouth opened to receive the accursed nectar, the sickly sweet taste sending thrills of anticipation through my body. My first swallow burned through to my stomach, the fire of renewed strength, of the energy that defeated the wasting sickness that would otherwise consume me.

A scimitar's movement caught at the very limit of my eyesight. I reacted without thought, my left hand reaching for the hand that held the weapon even as I kicked my first victim aside, raised my sword to the new threat.

I slashed that one's belly open and wrenched his scimitar from his hand, left him to scream and spill his entrails upon the forest floor. In those few moments, the joy of battle, the knife-edge of knowing that each beat of my heart could be my last, rose to fill me. My sword and stolen scimitar slashed into horses and men as I spun and danced amid the screams of the dying.

None could touch me: the Sultan's curse granted me speed and strength beyond human while the draught of fresh blood coursed through my body. Here, there was blood aplenty to sustain my unnatural prowess and for once, I welcomed it. Surely this was God's answer to my prayer.

If I were to use the curse in His name only, dedicate the victories it won me to His glory, it ceased to be the tool of darkness the Sultan had intended and became instead the scourge of Mohammed's followers. Thus could I expiate my many sins.

I truly know not how long the battle lasted. It can not have been long, for mist still lay heavy about me when my weapons could find no more enemies. I stood, gulping air tainted by the stench of death, and listened. I could hear only my own guards, all ten with the dazed look of men astounded to find themselves still breathing.

Of the enemy, I counted forty and three dead, and seven still living though wounded so severely they would not see the morrow. I stalked to the nearest, rested the point my sword in the hollow of the man's throat.

He took time to recognize my presence, to look up along the length of Toledo steel to my blood-covered face. A moan escaped him, and the words, "Kaziklu Bey."

I smiled. The Impaler Lord. He recognized me: good. "Grant me reason not to impale you alive," I said in Turkish.

His eyes opened very wide, and he grew even paler. His words lacked coherence, and were interspersed with pleas to Al-lah, but they told me enough. This group had been sent to commit murder and return to my beloved cousin Basarab with my corpse -- or failing that, my head. Returning without proof of my death had not been an option.

How fitting that dear Basarab Laiota should choose the coward's path. No doubt he wished to be free of me so he could rest his old bones safely. Perhaps instead of sending his head to the Turks I should send that part of a man they valued most.

My mood must have reflected upon my face, for the Turkish soldier began to beg the mercy I had implicitly promised.

I regarded him with contempt. "May your Al-lah grant you mercy," I said, and drove my sword into his throat. His body spasmed once, then was still. The death reflected nothing upon me, and I felt only weariness. In truth, there was little likelihood that he would have survived to be impaled, but fear of that fate -- and no doubt the reputation I had garnered -- overwhelmed any such consideration in his mind. To Turks, death by impalement was dishonor, and impalement by my hand dishonor and defilement.

For Turks, not only did I grease the stakes, I greased them with pig fat. Few had ever received the relative mercy of the stake piercing their heart: I displayed their proclivities to the world instead. Small wonder they held that death in battle was preferable to capture and impalement.

I cleaned my sword on a fallen man's clothing before sheathing the weapon, and located a relatively unstained turban to unwrap and wipe the worst blood from my face. "Send someone to the camp to have stakes prepared and bring these back." I could feel the grim amusement in my smile, taste it in my voice. "We will have a welcoming gift for the Sultan's tool ere this mist lifts."

#

Staying in Shape

Welcome to the New Year everyone.

Staying in Shape - OK, I'm not talking about how many push ups and jumping squats you can do.

I've been thinking about the elements of prose and storytelling, and wondering how you keep all of those skills sharp.

Stephen King in his book On Writing talks about carrying around the Grammar Tool Box. He uses a neat metaphor in the book for this, but I'm afraid nothing can really get me all that excited about grammar. I tend to learn it as I need it, then let myself forget it - after which point it becomes instinctive. I usually only need to research grammar once in a blue moon.

What started me off on all this was reading about competitive athletes and how they stay in peak condition. Then I was thinking, 'What is peak writing condition?'

My first reaction was that time is the critical issue. I you asked a sprinter what he was going to do with the first hour of his available training he is going to answer 'sprinting' . It's only the tenth or twentieth hour where weight training, cross training or stretching start to come into the balance.

So - assuming you do have ten or twenty hours to actually write, what would you do with part of this time to stay in condition? I guess it's all about filling in the gaps - literary cross-training. If you are writing novels, write some short prose to hone your skill and rein in the wordiness. If you are writing third person, try first person. If you are scratching to get the words out - remove the mental barriers and give yourself permission to write anything as long as the words keep flowing, even if you are typing out the blurb on the back of a cereal box. If you are a pantster - try plotting. If you are an obsessive plotter - try letting the narrative take over.

How do you stay in Writing Shape? What else could help to increase Writing fitness, or do you just need to get the words out? Do you do any deliberate work to hone writing skills?

First Novel Squee

I got the momentous news yesterday - Impaler is scheduled for March this year, and I have a cover.

This makes it all so much more real, seeing the schedule notification on the Naked Reader blog, and of course having Laura Givens cover artwork sitting in my inbox. It's almost like having the physical item (I'm old enough to be a bit of a traditionalist that way, but hey, one day...)

I'd be bouncing with excitement except that when I bounce, too much else bounces along and it doesn't stop when I do. Besides, it's fast approaching this Mad Genius's bedtime. (I'm writing this Wednesday night).