IWSG: Reading and Writing

Another month, another post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. If you're not already a member, learn more about them on their website and Facebook page. They're also on Instagram and Twitter.

Our hosts this month are Ronel Janes Vuuren, Mary Aalgaard, Madeline Mora-Summonte, and Ellen@The Cynical Sailor.

Here's our question for the month: It's been said that the benefits of becoming a writer who does not read is that all your ideas are new and original. Everything you do is an extension of yourself, instead of a mixture of you and another author. On the other hand, how can you expect other people to want your writing if you don't enjoy reading? What are your thoughts?

 As an avid reader, I can't imagine giving it up as long as I'm able to do it. I disagree with the premise that avoiding reading will give you original ideas and an original voice. Ideas are everywhere, not just in books, but in movies, comics, games, TV shows, songs, and even everyday incidents. You can't avoid exposure to other people's ideas. To create original stories, I often obtain inspiration from many sources and combine them. For example, my first published short story, "A Reptile at the Reunion," which can be found in Firestorm of Dragons, was inspired by a question prompt for a different anthology (The question was something like, "Say, aren't you dead?") and a letter inviting me to my grad school reunion. Along the way, the dead part evolved into a reason why someone might avoid going to their college reunion. (In this story, a magician who'd lost her magic was reluctant to return to a University of Magic.) I think if you try too hard to create an original idea, it might not resonate with readers. I do agree that your favorite authors can influence your writing style, but I think the best way to avoid copying one author is to read widely, not quit reading.

How important do you think it is for a writer to be a reader? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Ysabel, Avatar of Fall

Since Monday was the first day of fall, I thought it a good time to profile the character of mine who's linked to the season: Ysabel S'Ivena Lathatilltin, the Avatar of Fall. She's the protagonist of Fifth Season, Book Four of my Season Avatars series.

Ysabel is the daughter of a Challen musician (who used to be a Fallswoman, dedicated to the Challen Goddess of Fall) and a Selathen merchant. Like all Season Avatars, she was born on the first day of fall (in Challen, only Season Avatars are ever born on the first day of a season), but her birthdate was falsified in the official records. The country of Selath was devastated by magic eight hundred years ago (during the time of Seasons' Beginnings) forcing Selathens to flee their country. They still hate magic, which was why Ysabel's mother had to hide her daughter's identity. Ysabel hopes that over time, she will be able to reconcile her people to magic.

As the Avatar of Fall, Ysabel has animal magic. She can bond with all native Challen animals, heal them, and command them to some extent (depending on the type of animal). She has an anilink, an intelligent magical animal companion with whom she can communicate telepathically. Her anilink senses when magical weather storms occur anywhere in Challen so Ysabel and her sister Season Avatars can set the land to rights.

Like her mother, Ysabel has musical talent and plays the piano very well. She's also the most maternally inclined of the Season Avatars, having helped look after her younger siblings. If anything, Ysabel's greatest fault is being too kind. She hates having to euthanize badly injured animals or allowing one to die to feed another. She can also be too trusting of people. To see how she handles the challenges of animals who don't heed her or relatives who are jealous of her, read her story. However, since her book is fourth in the series, I recommend reading the prequel Season's Beginnings, which also provides more details about her long relationship with Kron. The next two books in the series are Scattered Seasons and Chaos Season.

Is there anything else you'd like to know about Ysabel? Feel free to ask in the comments.

Dear Writer, You Need to Quit

Are you looking for a "magic bullet" or a guaranteed "ten-step program for success"? If you are, then Dear Writer, You Need to Quit by Becca Syme is not for you. Instead, Syme, an author turned coach, wants to change your mind-set. She doesn't want you to quit writing; instead, she wants to help you quit bad habits that hinder your work.

According to Syme, your productivity can be affected by minor things, even what you do the first thing in the morning. (Spoiler alert: checking e-mail or social media can send you on a chase that can hamper your productivity.) However, being productive doesn't necessarily mean you have to write a book every month. Some authors may be able to manage that, but others need more time to process their stories. Some authors may plan their stories in advance, while others discover it as they write. However, attempting to imitate another author's work methods doesn't guarantee success for you. To put things into perspective, Syme reminds us that there are more than seven million books on Amazon, and the vast majority of them don't get good sales. Even a skilled author needs luck for success.

What should you be looking for when you pick up this book? Uncomfortable truths that can help you grow. So put away the phone (or at least turn off the internet) and check it out.

The Storytelling Animal

We authors might like to think our drive to tell stories makes us special. However, humans have been obsessed with telling stories for thousands of years, and this characteristic has shaped our evolution. Jonathan Gottshall discusses this topic in his book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.

 Make-believe is an essential part of a young child's development. It's a way of practicing social and problem-solving skills. However, we continue making up stories our entire lives, and they're not always wish-fulfillment fantasies. Our nighttime dreams are more often nightmares instead of pleasant vacations. Stories can bring groups together and establish social norms. On an individual level, our memories aren't exact, but fictional recreations. Even our self-images are fictional versions of ourselves where we're always better than average and the hero of our own stories. People suffering from depression have more realistic images of themselves, but in this book, that's a sign of how important storytelling is to our mental health.

Storytelling has taking many forms during human history. We no longer depend on oral storytelling for our fix. We consume stories through books, video, and games. Even if reading fiction becomes a lost art, we will find ways to tell new stories.

In my Season Avatars series, there's a Goddess who calls Herself the Grandmother of Stories. Although She originated in a quasi-Polynesian culture, She is aware of events happening in other parts of the world. She uses her understanding of human and divine nature to protect Her chosen people and uses storytellers as Her Avatars. Even deities from other cultures respect Her.

Do your own stories reflect the power of human storytelling? If so, how? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

IWSG: A Coffeehouse of One's Own

If September hath thirty days, then save the first Wednesday for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Check out their website or Facebook page for more information.

Thanks to Gwen Gardner, Doreen McGettigan, Tyrean Martison, Chemist Ken, and Cathrina Constantine for co-hosting this month. The question we're supposed to discuss is If you could pick one place in the world to sit and write your next story, where would it be and why?

Since I'm focused on my current project (working title is Dryad in Doubt, the second book in an urban fantasy trilogy, about 27,500 words long as I write this post), I'm going to use this story for my answer. The heroine of this series is a dryad who lives at the top of Bascom Hill on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus (see picture below for Victoria's tree):

My first thought was to write either on the steps of Bascom Hall (the building in the picture) for inspiration or to write in Memorial Union on campus to be on location. The first floor of the union can be noisy, however, and the steps would be uncomfortable. So I'm going to go with  my favorite coffee house in Madison: Michelangelo's Coffee House.  Although the address is on State Street, they have a back room and back entrance very close to the Concourse Hotel, where WisCon is held. (Yes, I miss not having gone the last couple of years. Maybe next year or 2021.) I've attended readings at Michelangelo's. They not only carry a good selection of tea but also have good vegetarian meals and desserts. I could find a quiet corner to write in and keep myself fortified during the process. When I need a break, I can wander around Madison and scout out scene locations. A shame I don't live in Madison. Anyone want to contribute to a GoFundMe so I can live in Madison until I finish this series? That might make school drop-off and pickup a little inconvenient, so I guess I'll have to write at home and at work (on my lunch hour) instead.

Where do you like to write? Do you have an ideal writing location? Feel free to share it in the comments.

Saving Story Ideas

While I was cleaning my office last week, I came upon a trove of sticky notes full of story ideas, haiku, and other odd thoughts. Many of them I'd forgotten about. Some of these notes are for current series, while others are for story ideas that I haven't done anything with. I've been trying to declutter, so instead of keeping them, I transcribed them into a Word document. I have a bunch more to finish. I suppose there are plenty of apps people can use instead for capturing thoughts on the go. Perhaps when I upgrade my phone to one with more memory, I might be able to use of of them. In the meantime, here's an old haiku on one of those sticky notes that fits the topic:

So many boxes.

Things I used enough to save

Now they’re forgotten.

How do you organize your story notes? Do you keep them on paper or in electronic form? Feel free to share in the comments.

What Makes a Story Memorable?

I subscribe to one of Book Riot's newsletters. A couple of weeks ago, they linked to an essay discussing "lifeboat thinking," stories that are thought experiments about who is worthy of survival in a given situation. One classic science fiction short story that illustrates this type of thinking is "The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin. If you've never read it (I just read it after this discussion) you can find it here. This essay does a good job of analyzing it. Although the essay has over two hundred comments, it's worth going through them as well. Spoilers will be posted in the next paragraph, so if you haven't read the story yet, I recommend doing so now and reading the essay and comments later.




OK, if you're still with me, "The Cold Equations" is a story about a spaceship pilot who finds a stowaway on his ship. The pilot is on a desperate mission to deliver medicine to a group of explorers, but his ship doesn't have enough fuel to land safely with the weight of an extra passenger. Corporate rules are that stowaways are to be shot immediately and tossed out the airlock; since the passenger is a teenage girl named Marilyn who just wanted to see her brother, she's given an extra hour of life before the cold equations of the title force her to sacrifice herself.

Editor John W. Campbell really wanted the tragic ending; he made Godwin rewrite the story multiple times because the author kept finding a way to save the girl. Despite the rewrites, the story has received a lot of critique since it was published in 1954. Other than a sign, there are no security measures in place to prevent a stowaway from coming onboard. (I work in Quality Assurance, where we deal with corrective and preventative measures to ensure food safety. One would expect starship designers to use similar practices.) You'll see several security measures suggested in the comments sections of the second essay I mentioned earlier. Despite all the editing, there are still some internal inconsistencies within the story. At the beginning of the story, Marilyn thinks all she has to do is pay a fine to make up for stowing away, implying that she's rich. By the end of the story, we learn her family doesn't have much money. There's also another point that I haven't seen anyone discuss yet. If the pilot only has enough fuel for a one-way trip, then he's forced to remain with the group of explorers he's helping until the end of their mission. What if they run out of supplies? Will the pilot be killed due to other cold equations?

Despite the problems with "The Cold Equations," the story has been adapted and anthologized many times since its original publication. What makes it so memorable? Commenters suggest that the tragic ending makes the story memorable, particularly since when "The Cold Equations" was published, science fiction stories were about solving problems with science. For me, the worldbuilding flaws are frustrating, and I want to see better security measures put in place. Character gender may also be a factor. Stowaways in this setting are normally male criminals, not naive young women. The death of a young woman may anger some readers and secretly satisfy others. Many factors make this story memorable, and they may vary from reader to reader.

What's one of the most memorable stories you've read, and what makes it memorable for you? Feel free to share in the comments.

Distaff Anthology Releases Tomorrow

DISTAFF: NOUN

A staff used in spinning.
Of women and women’s work.
An anthology of women’s stories woven through time and space.

In 2018 a crack team of women sci-fi writers, all members of the sffchronicles community forum, came together to write an anthology. Distaff is the result. Join us as we share stories of people, of science and exploration, and enjoy the words we weave.

Further Info:

Distaff is a Science Fiction Anthology featuring nine short stories by female identifying authors. The anthology began in 2018 on SffChronicles.com, a webforum devoted to the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror genres. Like the site that gave birth to the idea, Distaff encapsulates the broad range of the Science Fiction genre. The anthology shrugs off the negative connotations of the word Distaff and embodies the positive aspects of what women can achieve when they pool their talents. Distaff is entirely ‘of women’s work.’ 

Distaff contains nine stories from new and best-selling authors. 

·       Authors: Susan Boulton, Damaris Browne, Kerry Buchanan, Shellie Horst, Rosie Oliver, Jane O'Reilly, Juliana Spink Mills, E. J. Tett, Jo Zebedee.

·       Publication Date: August 15, 2019

·       Website https://distaffanthology.wordpress.com

·       Available at Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/8vsjzx

·       ISBN 9781074955007 

·       Cover Design: Shellie Horst 

Editing: Rosie Oliver & Samanda R. Primeau

IWSG: Writing Surprises

It's hard to believe we're in the last full month of summer, isn't it? Welcome to the sweltering month of August. Rather than think about the heat, let's talk about writing and the Insecure Writer's Support Group. You can learn more about them on their website and Facebook page.
This month, our hosts are Renee Scattergood, Sadira Stone, Jacqui Murray, Tamara Narayan, and LG Keltner.

Here's our question for this month: Has your writing ever taken you by surprise? For example, a positive and belated response to a submission you'd forgotten about or an ending you never saw coming?

My characters tend to take me by surprise by going off in directions I hadn't foreseen. For example, in both my Catalyst Chronicles and Season Avatars series, I have secondary characters that I paired up with someone else but then fall in love with the main character. That gets very awkward, especially when the main character doesn't reciprocate. I know how to work it out in both series. In the case of the Catalyst Chronicles series, I've been blocked on a story that comes between Twinned Universes and the next book in the series, which I plan to call Catalyst in the Crucible. At least Catalyst in the Crucible will resolve the romance aspect for some of the characters. (Still not sure if some of the characters will get a match--or if they need one.) You'll have to read the entire Season Avatars series to find out what happens to my characters, but I have further adventures planned for them in the spinoff series.

Have your characters surprised you? Feel free to reply in the comments.