Category: Writing

An excerpt from my new novel The Man Who Drew You

    Patrick

The below was an April Fool’s post.

I’m 180,000 words into a new novel, titled The Man Who Drew You, a magical realism adventure filled with over 400 of my own original drawings!

Below is an excerpt with the art that will be included in the final version. Give it a read and let me know what you think!

Chapter 3: Maze of Paint

It had been tough to get to the painting, but Ansel reached it by climbing the ornate ivy carved into the column beside it. He had to extend one bare foot over and rest it on the painting below it, but after that he was able to lean his lithe body across to read the tiny plague on the frame. The painting was hung ten feet up on the wall of the room named “The Elemental Cuniform Proportionairies”, and this particular painting was named A Lad in Blue Polishing the Tail Lights of a Motor Car.MazeOfPaint1

Ansel licked it, pressing his tongue on the rough paint and sliding it back and forth, starting at the corners and working inward as usual. He hoped this one would lead him not to another painting, but to the exit of this god-forsaken museum.

His food reserves were running low. Water wasn’t a problem, due to the many fountains and decorative spouts that popped up in the floors and the walls of every other room. But he had eaten his last bologna sandwich weeks ago and was only surviving by consuming the various potted plants he had come across. But had hadn’t found one of those in a few days. He had even eaten his leather moccasins, boiling them over a candle in a piece of his bicycle helmet filled with fountain water.

And now, bare-footed, bare-headed and starving, he desperately licked the painting, using his special tongue powers to search for any glimpse of the past that could help get him out of this place.

The images came quickly this time, and Ansel realized just as quickly that this wasn’t the one he was looking for. The first painting. Painting Prime. He could see images in his mind’s eye, like his tongue was a pink slab of RF cable connecting the painting to his brain. He could see an easel, with A Lad in Blue Polishing the Tail Lights of a Motor Car sitting on it. The easel was in front of a blank wall. Sunlight was coming from behind him and dappling across the wall. In front of him was a hand holding out a paint brush. The hand was ensconced in a black glove, and it was moving the brush across the painting. Except the paint was coming off the canvas. Time was flowing backwards.

The image in Ansel’s brain was flying by in fast reverse, so it was only a few seconds of licking before he could see that the painting on the easel was completely empty, and that the artist was removing the blank canvas and replacing it with another complete painting. The one that he had completed just before A Lad in Blue Polishing the Tail Lights of a Motor Car. The next painting that Ansel had to find, which will hopefully lead him back to the beginning of this mess so he could find a way out of here.

This new painting was now baked into Ansel’s brain via his tongue powers, and he vaguely remembered seeing it a couple hundred rooms ago. He headed back in that direction, wandering in circles through the same sections of rooms until eventually he found it sometime the next day. It was in a room labeled “The Vertical Oluvian Triumvirate”, which contained three tall paintings on one wall. Ansel’s target was in the middle. It had a small plague under it that read Love Lost Between Two Song Birds.

MazeOfPaint2

He immediately ran up to it and began licking, and the image he got this time was the same as usual. The painting on an easel. But this timesomething was different. It took Ansel a few seconds to figure out what it was. The same gloved hand was there, and it was moving in the same fast reverse, removing paint from the canvas. Then he saw it. The easel was no longer in front of a blank wall. It was in front of a window.

It was too dark outside the window to see what the view was, but Ansel could see a reflection in the glass. He could see the painter, his brush flying back and forth with wild abandon, his face screwed intently at the canvas. Ansel recognized that face.

It was his own.

Ansel screamed.

LitReactor Flash Fiction Contest Winner: “Sighting”

    Patrick

I am proud to be the co-winner of the February Flash Fiction contest over at LitReactor. We had to write a story that was exactly 30 words about or inspired by Big Foot.

I thought it would be interesting to see the thought process that went into the story. My initial idea was to do the opposite of the usual Big Foot sighting tale. So I thought it would be interesting if Big Foot was the main character and he had sighted a human.

So I started with that idea and, since a common problem with micro-fiction stories is that they aren’t really “stories”, I really wanted to make sure it had a beginning middle and an end. I didn’t think about the 30 word constraint at first. I would just make it short and fix it from there.

My first version (41 words):

Every night I search, hoping to see it again. But it’s elusive and doesn’t show its pale pink face. So I lope back to my cave, lean my furry hide against the cold stone, and dream of something other than solitude.

I had to shorten it to get rid of 11 words, but I wanted to keep the four main points: The narrator is Big Foot, Big foot sees a human, wants to see it again but doesn’t, stays sad and lonesome.

Here is the final version (30 words):

Every night I hope it returns but I never see its pale pink face. So I lope to my lonely cave, lean my furry hide against cold stone, and dream.

In my opinion, the first version is best, but that’s the problem with artificially giving a story a limit. It’s an interesting tool to flex your writing brain, but it may not be what’s best for the story.

Thanks to LitReactor for running the contest and for the prize: a copy of The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac by Sharma Shields.

What I Learned While Writing My Fifth Novel

    Patrick

I recently completed the first draft of my fifth (unpublished) novel. The tentative title is The Intruders. Out of all of the long fiction I’ve written, I am happiest by far with how this one has turned out.

Not to say it’s a great book, but I can see the potential there for something that people will enjoy reading. Something that will hopefully hit them in a primal place and not let up. It’s in there for sure, but it is still a few drafts away.

Now that the basic story is complete and down on paper, I can look back on the experience of writing it. And I can see that I learned a lot. Maybe some of you have figured most of this out already, or maybe you haven’t. Either way, here is a quick list:

1) I found out what type of writer I am.

A discovery writer. Previously, whenever I sat down to write long fiction, I always had an outline ready. A chapter by chapter summary of what was going to happen, all the way through to the ending.

That’s no fun! For The Intruders, I had nothing planned. In fact, it was supposed to be a short story but once I got going I could see there was much more to it. By the time I was done it was full novel length. I didn’t plan anything out in advance, so it was like I was reading the book instead of writing it. Discovering what happened as it went on.

Which brings me to number 2.

2) Writing can be fun.

There were moments while writing that I was smiling because the events I was creating were so much fun to write. Or when some great twist or turn or scene just fell into place like a puzzle peice. It was so much fun to see that happen and to feel that momentum just build and build until the finale.

3) Stuff needs to happen!

Writing 101, right? Well, it took me a while to figure it out. Yes, my other long fiction had things happening, but the character’s never drove the action. And alot of the prose took place inside the character’s heads.

The Intruders has scenes. Scenes that the characters themselves initiate, and scenes that move the story forward.

4) Character is important

I used to write mostly for story. I liked ideas for tales, and whoever happened to get slotted in as the characters in those tales was secondary. But I can see now that the characters are just as important as what happens to them.

Mainly, because they should be driving the story forward. They should not be passengers as the story happens to them. When the plot moves forward, someone in the story should cause it to do so. And that someone should be a character that people want to read about.

5) I have a long way to go.

I am happy with The Intruders, but there are problems. It’s too short. One of the characters is pretty bad and needs better motivation. The opening chapter needs to be rewritten to have a stronger hook. I need to research some things that happen in the book because in real life they might not work. The events might be in the wrong order, depending on how you look at it.

In short, editing a novel is a little more involved than editing a short story. I can edit one of my short stories in twenty minutes just by reading it out loud with a red pen in hand. But that’s not going to work for this. There are too many moviing peices, and I want them all to work together like a well-oiled machine. But I’ll get there, and maybe some day soon this will be the first of my novels that I try to legitametly publish.

I know that I can do better and I look forward to applying all I learned to the next one. And learning even more when I write that one.

And then so on and so forth until the day I die.

Brandon Sanderson on Nuts and Bolts

    Patrick

I’ve been watching these lectures by Brandon Sanderson on Youtube. It’s him teaching a class on writing scifi/fantasy. But it’s full of ideas that can help writers in any genre.

I definitely recommend them, but a bit on Sanderson first, so you know what to expect: Sanderson is a great structural, nuts and bolts, technical writer. Meaning he knows how to make ideas into novels using tools and devices that have been tested over time.

He is undeniably talented, and comes up with great ideas, but he does have limitations. I don’t think he’ll ever write a truly deep or personal book, and his style isn’t particularly interesting. But that’s fine. He tells good stories.

And these lectures are very useful at showing how he creates those stories. They are full of great tools. Structure, plot, character, prep, word-counts, genre expectations, etc. It’s very focused on getting published, which sounds like the antithesis of art but these ideas have their place.

To put it simply, these videos can give you a structure to fill in with your own unique creations. Combine some of these tools with beautiful and personal prose and you’ll be unstoppable.

I’m reading Steelheart now. It’s a great premise, and it moves quickly. Light, but a lot of fun. A good counterpoint to the wrenching book that I just read.

Zen Writing

    Patrick

Imagine writing a book a hundred years ago? Writing it long hand by candle light? Or on a primitive typewriter? Most of us think we are blessed to be writing with today’s technology. Computers, printers, spell-check, word processor auto-formatting. Scrivener, outlining and novel-building software. Email and submissions managers.

How could we possible write a novel or a story let alone edit it without all those tools? But I’ve found in my experience (as what I would call an Experienced Amateur writer), that all of those tools and features get in the way of actually writing.

Distractions are everywhere! Even things that seem productive are really just distractions. Now, this is all just my opinion, but I have found that my best and most productive time is when I am just writing on my computer and not thinking about anything else on the screen. If I misspell a word, I don’t want to see that red-squiggly line. It will interrupt the flow and make me want to fix it. But that can always be done later. After I’m done being creative.

It took me a while to figure that out, and I had to leverage some technology and software to get back to the spirit of what authors were doing hundreds of years ago. Mainly because I can’t write long-hand quickly.

Here are some things I found that are very useful for that productive time:

  • WriteMonkey – A simple full-screen text editor that lets you easily control the writing experience. If you have a Windows-based system, try it! I used it until I got my Chromebook.
  • Chromebook (I chose the Acer C720) – Cheap, easy to use. Starts in seconds. Isn’t full of distractions (Well, the internet is always a distraction, but see the point below). Basically, it’s a typing machine for me and nothing more.
  • I now use Google Docs full-screen with the menus hidden. Looks just like WriteMonkey did.
  • Windows Notepad – When all else fails, go with the classic. I use this one when I’m not on my own computer.
  • Turn off the internet if you have no self-control. Unplug the network cable, turn off the router, whatever you have to do to keep you mind on writing instead of browsing.
  • Find a location where you just write and do nothing else. No internet. No TV. Train yourself like Pavlov’s dog. When you sit in the chair or couch or bean bag or or wherever, your writing glands should start salivating.

After the writing is done, I go back to the distraction filled world of fully-featured software that helps me organize and polish my work.

My recommendation is to clearly separate your time actually writing from the time you spend doing all the other stuff. The latter has to get done, but it should never impede the former.