Guest Post - "Good Dialogue: Balancing Realism and Awesomeness by A.G. Wyatt

Good Dialogue: Balancing Realism and Awesomeness

Some people will tell you that good dialogue is realistic. Those people are barely half right on a good day. Good dialogue is a delicate balance between what’s realistic, what’s dramatic, and what’s just plain awesome.

So how does that work?

Balancing Realism and Drama

You need dialogue to seem realistic and to sound like we imagine people talking. That means slang, abbreviations, incomplete sentences, and touches of humor and awkwardness.

But that’s not the same as how people really talk. Any real conversation involves a bunch of repetitions, hesitations, and “er, hm” moments that just clutter up the scene. So throw in some realism, but don’t go too far.

Aaron Sorkin is famous for this. His dialogue seems realistic because characters interrupt and talk over each other, like in real life. But it’s hyper-reality, in which every word is cool, coherent and awesome.

Speaking of awesome, snappy one-liners and killer comebacks will make your dialogue memorable and grab attention, so throw in a few. But don’t use a whole bucketful — the more you have, the more obvious it will be that this isn’t real people talking.

The same goes for drama. This lies largely in the structure, so is easier to hide. Skip over the awkward fifteen minutes of developing a real plan, and cut to the summary. Have people interrupt each other at the perfect moment to add conflict and tension to the scene without hiding meaning. Have people join in at the perfectly dramatic right (or wrong) moment.

Structure for drama and use details for realism and awesomeness.

Voices: Being Consistent and Characterful

One of the most important things to do in good dialogue is to make the characters distinctive. Give each one particular phrases or ways of talking. These can be obvious, like Marvel comics’ robot bounty hunter Death’s Head, who ends many sentences with “yes?” They can be more subtle, like having a character use short sentences or ask a lot of questions. The character can be favoring long words, or plainer sounding ones with an Anglo-Saxon root.

If each character has distinctive verbal tics then they’ll stand out, making the dialogue clearer, more real and more dramatic. But be careful not to overdo it. Even Death’s Head doesn’t use his distinctive “yes?” as often on the page as readers remember, and only gets away with it because he’s not a totally serious character. Over use any element and the character will seem absurd.

Some Examples

It’s easier to show how this works through bad examples than good ones. So let’s look at a few (that I’ve invented — no real authors were hurt in the making of this article)…

“As you know, Gilbert, Ragaton was once home to an ancient witch who…”

Any sentence that starts “as you know” is a stinker. Using this to tell readers story background is neither dramatic nor realistic — only the most tedious people tell us what we already know. If I want them to talk about the witch, I’ll have to imply her existence:

“Is that poster meant to show the Ragaton Witch? It looks almost as ancient and wrinkled as she was.”

It’s not perfect, but it hints at the character’s snobby attitude and deep familiarity with the witch, while implying her existence.

How about a little back and forth:

“Why did you do it, Rusko?”

“I’m not telling.”

“Tell me or I’ll beat you.”

“Still not telling.”

That’s one way to take the drama out of an interrogation, and the realism - people don’t just answer questions directly, and the interrogator is being too on the nose. So instead:

“Why did you do it, Rusko?”

“Why are you such a fat pig, Cole? You’re like one of them big sows, rolling around in the—”

“You want to meet my friend Mr. Lead Pipe?”

“You want to go to Hell?”

Now Rusko’s fighting back with his words, “Mr. Lead Pipe” has shown Cole’s twisted sense of humor, and they’re both being a little bit more dramatic and characterful.

Good dialogue strikes that balance of realism and drama, as well as showing character. It’s not just nice to have. It’s vital.

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A.G. Wyatt is the author of the post-apocalyptic adventure series, MoonFall, and is presently working on his second series. When he's not writing, he's reading, or looking for inspiration near his hometown in Northeastern PA.

Links to A.G. Wyatt's social media profiles:

Facebook: https://facebook.com/agwyattauthor

Twitter: https://Twitter.com/agwyattauthor

Check out MoonFall on Goodreads.

Check out MoonFall on Amazon.

Guest Post - Max Gladstone on "The Laws of Magic"

The Craft Sequence, starting with Three Parts Dead, is one of those that's been on my radar for quite some time, but with my schedule, I haven't had the time to get to it. At the same time, I've only heard great things about it, so I took the opportunity to host an article by Max Gladstone on "The Laws of Magic."

Being a lawyer myself, this article really hit home for me and Three Parts Dead has risen tremendously on my radar. Thanks go to Max and look for his latest from Tor, Last First Snow, book 4 in the Craft Sequence, which just came out July 14.

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The Laws of Magic

By Max Gladstone

Modern fantasies tend to discuss magic as if it’s an alternate form of physics, or even computer code—but really, we expect magic to work much more like the practice of law.

In law, as in magic, the world functions according to certain rules and definitions.  In law, as in magic, masters of those rules and definitions can, in certain ritual circumstances, manipulate symbols to change aspects of their world.  Law, like magic, rests on pillars of dead languages and forbidden (or at least forbidding) tomes—I don’t know any other modern profession that involves quite so many thick tomes of onionskin paper set in small type and bound in red leather.

And law, like magic, depends on the personal skill and charisma of the advocate.  In computer programming, and in physics, you can’t just want something to happen hard enough, while time and again in fantasy we encounter moments where heroes triumph through sheer force of will.  Programming and physics are both profoundly impersonal.  Ted Chiang once suggested, when trying to define magic as something apart from science, that magic cares who’s practicing it, while science, ideally, works the same for everyone.  Well, law does care.

That’s where it started for me—that, coupled with the joking observation that law school classes tend to sound more like Hogwarts classes than do graduate level classes in other disciplines.  No “Advanced Topics in Biokinetics” or whatever—nope, you’ve got Remedies and Contracts and Corpse.  (Okay, fine, Corps.)  I think Potions is a 2L elective at most accredited US law schools.

They don’t teach you Defense against the Dark Arts, though.  That would make firm interviews more complicated.

Once I started pulling on this thread, the whole sweater unraveled—only to re-ravel itself into a different, weirder sweater.  I’ve written elsewhere about the connection between necromancy and bankruptcy law—surround a corpse with ritual wards and protections, remove the bits that don’t work, replace them with new bits built to your own design, and raise the corpse to shamble forth and do your bidding—but the implications go further. 

Law mediates relationships between people, and between people and these enormous immaterial entities that people naturally create, which have their own behaviors, histories, attitudes, psychologies, operations, and goals—we call them governments sometimes, and corporations other times, but at all times we use legal tools to develop them, maintain them, and, when necessary, destroy them.

Lawyers are one of the few groups in the modern world with the tools and power to engage these entities, and to help human beings relate to, and sometimes resist, them.  The enormous challenges we face in this new millennium, as those entities become more interconnected, intelligent, responsive, and invasive, are in that sense legal challenges—or at least, they’re challenges lawyers cannot ignore.

But law has as much potential to be an instrument of oppression as liberation; it’s much easier to pay off your student loans when you’re working for the power. To what extent can we work for good within the system?  How does reform happen?  What better options exist?  How do we resist regulatory capture?  These are enormous questions—too big, almost, to address in mimetic fiction.  Ever since the first proto-humans grunted stories to one another around the campfire, we’ve approached our society's biggest questions in the language of myth; that’s what I’m trying to do in the Craft Sequence.

Also, this approach lets me fill fantasy novels with jokes about Dead Hands, mediation practice, document review, and the Rule against Perpetuities—and goofy law jokes really are their own reward.

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From Patrick Rothfuss's 5-Star Goodreads review of Three Parts Dead:" Twenty-ish years ago, I read Neverwhere and it kinda blew the top off of my head. It was a mix of things I didn't know could be mixed. It was magic and myth and London and faerie all brought together in a clever, cunning, subtle melange. 

That's how I feel about these books. They mix magic and science and culture and finance in a way I never considered possible before." 

Guest Post - Betsy Dornbusch on "Writing Sequels"

I'm happy to have Betsy Dornbusch on the blog again (see her article on the Writing Process). She's here today to talk about writing sequels, as I guess you may have guessed from the title of this post, you clever devils.

And Betsy would know all about writing sequels as the sequel to her debut, Exile, just came out last week - Emissary:

Here, she takes us into the writing process once again and looks at what it's like going back to the world she created in the first book.

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Writing Sequels

Betsy Dornbusch

            Writing a sequel is a really big topic because Emissary is such a big book (for me, anyway). At a 140K words, it’s bigger than Exile by 50%, and the book is a sort of trilogy all on its own because it’s sectioned into three parts: Draken in his new home, Draken traveling to his old home, and then back to his new home in a mad dash to defend it against invasion.

            The world of the Seven Eyes is also a big one, but I think you don’t get the sense of just how big it is in Exile. Draken, exiled (duh), doesn’t think too much about his old home except in comparison to the  new one. He’s still in shock from all that happened and dwelling on memories isn’t conducive to staying alive. His new country, Akrasia, has little to remind him of his old, Monoea. It isn’t an old country, nor is it crowded. The biggest Akrasian city isn’t a quarter of the size of Sevenfel in Monoea, the one Draken grew up in. And shifting from a nation of single ethnicity in which he is an outlier to a melting pot kingdom where he actually fits in without much trouble is a big enough adjustment for one book.

           At the start of Emissary Draken is about as recovered from the trauma of being exiled as he’s ever going to get (he suffers from depression). But when soldiers from his old country invade and demand he return home, he knows it means certain death. Unfortunately, they’ve got more than one secret to hold over his head. Going back is a selfless act; his queen, a child on the way, and the well-being of his country are all at stake. But when he gets to Monoea he realized the leaders there have even bigger concerns.

            The plot isn’t at all straightforward, either, and lends itself to some sprawl. There are too many factions with opposing goals, and we only get a limited picture of each with the entire story being in Draken’s point of view. Plot points in the story, as was noted in an early review, tend to fold back on themselves. I guess it’s natural; the whole story is one of Draken having to fold himself back into his past. In a way, Emissary is two stories: one of the present day and one of Draken’s past.

            Such a big story has myriad subplots: love interests, relationships gone askew, running jokes, a cast to keep track of, and an ever-growing body of magic. I found the magic the toughest to manage, because I had to one-up Exile. I knew in each book Draken would be gifted magic from the gods. Draken is a believer but not faithful, and he doesn’t view any of it as much of a gift. He has a tendency to turn his magic on people he shouldn’t and use it in ways the gods never intended. When they give him a necromantic sword in Exile, he has mostly disdain and then uses as a mere tool, ignoring the gods’ favor that comes along with it until forced.

           A minor spoiler for Emissary, one I feel comfortable sharing because it’s on the first page: Draken becomes self-healing. This could be a small, limited gift, but the way it manifests is not. These are big gifts: a sword with the power to give death and life, the ability to heal oneself. Really, they’re as big as the story itself. Keeping the magic in consistent use with a growing tension was one of my biggest challenges in writing this sequel.

            And then of course I’ve spent a lot of time working out how Emissary informs the last installment of the Books of the Seven Eyes. Draken emerges from the sequel cleansed of his old past but saddled with new truths and damage. Fortunately, I tend to plot. That helps.

           A trilogy is an intimidating project. I found writing the bridge piece, the sequel, a major challenge. A sequel does more than further the overall story arc, it has to lead to the next book, increase stakes and tension, grow the characters, but not finish them, and yet leave the readers satisfied they’ve read a complete story with its own subplots and resolution. But it has its advantages, too. The world is mostly established, though we might get to see more of it. Characters are developed and relationships can be deepened rather than launched. There’s a definite satisfaction in returning to beloved worlds. I hope you enjoy returning to the world of Seven Eyes as much as I did.

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Bio:

Betsy Dornbusch is the author of several short stories, novellas, and novels. In addition to speaking at numerous conventions and teaching writing classes, she has spent the last decade editing the online magazine Electric Spec and writing on her website Sex Scenes at Starbucks (betsydornbusch.com). She and her family split their time between Boulder and Grand Lake, Colorado.

Links for ordering Emissary (Seven Eyes, Book 2):

http://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9781597805322

http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781597805322-0

http://www.amazon.com/Emissary-Second-Book-Seven-Eyes/dp/1597805327

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/emissary-betsy-dornbusch/1118593806?ean=9781597805322

http://betsydornbusch.com

http://twitter.com/betsydornbusch

Guest Post - Tim Marquitz "These Ain't Yo Mama's Zombies" and $25 GIVEAWAY to Amazon plus Signed Copy of Dirge!

It's been far too long since I've mentioned Tim Marquitz on the blog, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been as active as ever. I have a couple of his books up in the queue very soon, but the problem is I never know when to start. The man's a machine, consistently pushing out high quality stories that enthrall you from page one. 

I've loved Tim's work since I first discovered Armageddon Bound and the Demon Squad series. Tim's got a new book out from Permuted Press and I will be reading it next for sure. Just look at the blurb for Dirge:

Wreathed in the ashes of betrayal, forced to come of age in the dungeons of her stolen inheritance, Kallie Brynn Soren died so that Dirge might be born.

In the midst of an undead invasion, Kallie is gifted powers by a dying priest. His last wish is for her to use them against the Necrolords in a way his faith would not allow. Reborn as Dirge and free of the priest’s conscience, she is more than happy to do so.

But when fate brings Dirge into the employ of the emperor–the same man whose machinations brought about the murder of her father–the opportunity for revenge becomes too much to ignore.

Torn between vengeance and the need to protect the only people she dare call family, Dirge learns there is a much deeper purpose to the Necrolord’s advance. Should it come to light, it might destroy everyone.

You'll find the giveaway below, and believe me, you want to enter this one. But first, Tim's here to talk about Zombies and Dirge, not your typical zombie story...

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These Ain’t Yo Mama’s Zombies

“This isn’t your typical zombie story,” is a line that pops up all too frequently these days. Authors are always trying to include the lovable hunks of decomposing flesh while spinning the concept as something new, something no one else has done or thought of. Sadly, that’s pretty damn hard to do without destroying the basis of what’s come before; what people understand to be zombie stories. Fortunately, I’m not here to tell you that I’ve reinvented the zombie and Dirge is a whole new chapter of never before seen undead action.

I’m just gonna imply it.

No, not really. The truth is, zombies play a relatively small role in Dirge. While they most certainly fill the background, and are the general foe laid out before our heroine, they’re truly the least of her concerns. It’s the masters pulling the strings behind the curtain Dirge has to worry about. The zombies are pretty average for the most part, barring a couple of rare examples.

That said, there’s still plenty of the human drama that makes up a great zombie tale, not to mention some good gore and action. That’s what you’re checking in for, right? Blood, guts, and brains.

Well, hopefully it’s more about the last one as I decided, somewhere along the way to creating Dirge, that I wanted to style the book after more literary sources. I didn’t want just another zombie story where the zombies got their skulls bashed in and the good guys try not to become the monsters they are so desperately trying to destroy. I wanted to create a character who stood out on the world, who was more than muscles and bones wielding a weapon to slaughter the undead, yet still offer up the chaos expected of a zombie book.

Guess you’ll let me know if I’ve succeeded. 

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Tim Marquitz bio:

Tim Marquitz is the author of the Demon Squad series, the Blood War Trilogy, co-author of the Dead West series, as well as several standalone books, and numerous anthology appearances including Triumph Over Tragedy, Corrupts Absolutely?, Demonic Dolls, Neverland's Library, and the forthcoming No Place Like Home and Blackguards.

The Editor in Chief of Ragnarok Publications, Tim most recently compiled and edited the Angelic Knight Press anthologies, Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous and Manifesto: UF, as well as Ragnarok Publications' Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters.

Web Presence:

www.tmarquitz.com

https://www.facebook.com/tim.marquitz

https://twitter.com/Marquitz

http://tmarquitz.com/blog/

Finally, the giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Guest Post & Giveaway! - "Opposites Attract - Characters Who Don't Hate Each Other but Probably Should" by Kenny Soward, Author of the GnomeSaga

Not too long ago, I read and reviewed Rough Magick by Kenny Soward. This was the first book I'd ever heard of that focused on Gnomes and it was a great read. Here's my review in fact. Well it's been retooled by the amazing people behind Ragnarok Publications, and it's ready for an eBook giveaway. Not only that, Soward's got a sequel out this month and a great guest post below. Let me know if I can fit any more into a single post!

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Opposites Attract – Characters Who Don’t Hate Each Other but Probably Should

By Kenny Soward

I was minding my own business one day, when Joe Martin, Creative Director at Ragnarok Publishing, sent me a private message giving me props for a particularly powerful scene in Tinkermage, the second book in my GnomeSaga series. 

The scene in question involves my main character, Nikselpik, and his cleric acquaintance, Fara. Fara could easily be characterized as neutral good on the D&D spectrum of alignments. And Nikselpik ... well, he’s a dark little fellow. In the scene, Fara intends to guide Nikselpik in the art of healing, and she brings along a wounded snow bird to test his skills. 

I wonder if there’s a joke in there somewhere – a necromancer, a cleric, and a wounded snow bird enter a bar ...

Nikselpik is of course reluctant to learn anything new, but he thinks Fara is pretty hot, so he’s going to play along and see what happens. Fara, on the other hand, is quite aware of Nikselpik’s shortcomings as a god-fearing gnome, but wants to expose him to something a little more positive than the necromantic arts.

Well, you can probably imagine how it ends ... a lot of disappointment and hurt feelings. The disappearance of any light at the end of the tunnel for them. All in all, the makings of some good friction.

At the heart of this scene was a very simple idea – two people who feel deeply bonded to one another want to share things with one another, sometimes to the detriment of their relationship. 

When I discover something funny or cute on FaceBook, I want to share it over to my girlfriend’s page because I want her to laugh like I did. I want to share other things with her, too. All the cool movies she never saw, like Big Trouble in Little China and Mad Max and The Thing, or some new band I recently discovered. Because that’s what makes up me, and I want her to like me. Music is a big part of her life. She’s a huge GWAR fan, so she wants to include me in all the fun and adventures of being a GWAR fan for those very same reasons; I’m pretty sure she wants me to like her too, although you’d have to ask her to be sure.

We’re not complete opposites, but neither are we completely the same, and it’s those degrees of separation that bring spice to our relationship. I get to go to gore spattering GWAR concerts and she gets to have a lot of fun snuggling up in front of the TV with me and viewing all those old culturally iconic movies so important and influential to the SFF and Horror communities. 

But what happens when those degrees of difference are just too far apart, too irrevocably distant? Sharing can turn into a disaster, shock at the other person’s belief system, disappointment, and pain. It can even tear people apart when something so core to one person’s being is considered vile or even blasphemous to another’s. These feelings can be strongest when questions of faith and spirituality are explored. And when the two people are physically attracted to one another – or even attracted by those very differences – it can lead to confusion and resentment. 

And that’s why it seemed completely logical that Fara, a good cleric of Evana, would want to share portions of her faith with someone she sees as exotic and dangerous ... someone she can fix. And the same goes for Nikselpik. He thinks Fara will one day understand his deadspeak even though her faith is so deeply rooted in life and light. They come together with the best of intentions, only to discover their feelings for one another may not be strong enough to bridge the divide between them, to span the distance between their core beliefs.

Will they see past their differences to reach a level of sharing that does not evoke those disaffecting emotions? Or will they suffer apart, never to be reclaim their friendship?

Either way, I knew I had the makings of a great little scene, and I ran with it. Or rather, they did. If you want to know how it all ends, you can check out my GnomeSaga series published by Ragnarok Publications. Also, stop by my Author FaceBook page to get updates on what I’m writing next. 

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Giveaway Rules for an eBook copy of Rough Magick:

1) Send an email to onlythebestsff[removethis]@gmail.com with the subject: "Get some Gnomes in your Homes"  

2) Include your name and physical address where you want the book sent.
3) This giveaway is international!
4) Snark increases your chance of winning on the next giveaway you enter (extra entries depending on the snark!) 
About the Author:

Kenny Soward grew up in Crescent Park, Kentucky, a small suburb just south of Cincinnati, Ohio, listening to hard rock and playing outdoors. In those quiet 1970's streets, he jumped bikes, played Nerf football, and acquired many a childhood scar.

Kenny's love for books flourished early, a habit passed down to him by his uncles. He burned through his grade school library, and in high school spent many days in detention for reading fantasy fiction during class. 

The transition to author was a natural one for Kenny. His sixth grade teacher encouraged him to start a journal, and he later began jotting down pieces of stories, mostly the outcomes of D&D gaming sessions. At the University of Kentucky, Kenny took creative writing classes under Gurny Norman, former Kentucky Poet Laureate and author of Divine Rights Trip (1971). 

Kenny's latest releases are ROUGH MAGIC (GnomeSaga #1) and THOSE POOR, POOR BASTARDS (Dead West #1) with Tim Marquitz and J.M. Martin. 

By day, Kenny works as a Unix professional, and at night he writes and sips bourbon. Kenny lives in Independence, Kentucky, with three cats and a gal who thinks she's a cat.

TINKERMAGE by Kenny Soward

THE ENEMY EXPOSED. Nikselpik Nur has become the city of Hightower’s staunchest—albeit unwilling—ally. He’s hardly learned to cope with his debilitating bugging addiction, much less take on the duties of being the city’s First Wizard. Can he embrace this new path? And will he? 

Meanwhile, Stena Wavebreaker is pulled from her seafaring duties by the Precisor General and given command of a raggedy airship to scout the ultraworldly enemy from the perilous skies above the Southern Reaches. Her mission: gain the support of the unpredictable ‘swamp elves,’ the Giyipcias. 

Lastly, Niksabella Nur has set off from Hightower at the behest of the grim stonekin leader, Jontuk. The gnomestress must unlock the full potential of her invention, the recursive mirror, and her own powers, to bear what might be the heaviest burden of all. What will she discover along the way? And will Jontuk be able to keep her alive long enough to save them all? 

This is GnomeSaga Book Two.

Guest Post - "Writing Process" by Betsy Dornbusch

I’m asked about process a lot on panels. I get it. People want to know what works, how writers get words on the page. What’s the password to the club? What’s the secret handshake? Is there an elixir? I heard there’s an elixir!!

We’re all granted the same hours in a day but some writers just seem to get more stuff done in less time. I tend to be a slower writer but I generally get more done per pass than others. The idea of doing seventeen passes on a book... ugh. Never. Again.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The longer I write, the more I plot. Tagline, flap copy, and synopsis—yeah, just like the market wants. It’s how I toss ideas into the lake to see if they float or swim. I do take them public sometimes, or ask friends. It’s worth it to test salability of ideas, and I’m not precious about them. If there’s an easy part of the process, it’s ideas.

My taglines are usually simple for personal use while it’s a WIP. When it was Exile, it was “Falsely accused for murdering his wife, a middle-aged soldier is exiled to an enemy country.” Last year, when I was working on the sequel, Emissary, I said, because lots of people know what Exile is about,“Draken has to go back to his original country to face a death sentence and a religious revolution.” And now, when I’m working on Enemy, I tell myself, “After a divisive coup Draken has to cobble his country back together to defeat foreign invaders.”

The next thing I write is basic marketing copy. Nothing too fancy, a basic paragraph. A few tent pole scenes, and the climactic cliffhanger with a little internal conflict/motivation thrown in. I’m pretty dependent on this paragraph. I don’t start writing a word until I’ve got at least that much because if it doesn’t read well that means the idea sucks.

I used to totally pantz it. Writing wasn’t FUN unless I didn’t know what was going to happen next. But you know what’s not fun? Rewriting a pantzing disaster. After a couple of these, I decided to remake myself into a plotter. I trained myself to brainstorm with friends and synopsis. At first it’s something like a couple of pages. A list of tent pole scenes, again, but more embellished, and I work harder at motivation. Why does this matter? Why doesn’t s/he just walk away? Why is my character re/acting the way s/he is? What’s the starting point, how does that inform the action, and what’s driving my character to point Z? What’s the worst thing that can happen? I include some internal conflict and drum up as many obstacles as I can. This is an anything-goes time, but I’m trying to work myself to an ending so I know where I’m headed. I’m also drafting during this time because I have no self-control. Also I do rolling revisions while I draft, going back and fixing things.

For my next book, Enemy, which completes the Seven Eyes Books, I’m working on my most detailed synopsis yet. It’s nearly chapter by chapter, though I haven’t designated any in my synopsis. It currently sits at five thousand words and I fully expect to add another thousand as I revise it. There’s a subplot to weave in and a twist to the ending I’m thinking over.

Not all publishers want this. Some want a treatment—a one pager, basically. Some do it on a verbal conversation. But I know to write the book in a timely fashion, I need this level of detail to keep me going from day to day.

And yeah, day to day. Hmm. The process there sometimes falls apart. I have kids in school, a dog, a husband, and a house to keep. I’m still working on my daily process and I think I’m realizing every day is different. I used to write to a scene, but now I tend to write word counts. I’m not sure which works better, though I feel like word counts make me more accountable (literally—haha). As I said before, I’m a pokey drafter, turning out pages as clean as I can make them.

Right now I’d call Facebook my biggest disruption, mostly because it’s the new email. Most of my writer friends contact me via PM. It’s how we organize conventions, appearances, everything. I’m in a few private groups of writers, some public interest groups, and there are always other friends to keep up with. Honestly, I’d dump Facebook if it wasn’t so integral to communicating with fellow writers. Twitter I spend less time on because every time I click it, I start chasing links and getting into conversations. I find it to be more of a timesuck than Facebook, which simply doesn’t move as fast. Twitter is probably one of those things I should be doing more, promotions-wise, but I try to put the majority of my work-time into writing.

I think the biggest part of the professional writing life is that there’s always more to do. It’s overwhelming, which is why I think some writers (coughmeahem) fall down on the day-to-day end of things. If we start thinking macro instead of micro, novel instead of chapter, or even scene, the job quickly overwhelms us.

Then we start to procrastinate. This

Source: http://myjetpack.tumblr.com/image/80457780970

cartoon from Tom Gauld pretty much describes my efforts therein. I’ve never actually been blocked but I have been too twitchy to write. That’s when I know it’s time to get up and do something else. Usually cleaning toilets or pushing the vacuum gets me back to telling stories quick enough. And that, Charlie Brown, is what writing is all about.

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Betsy Dornbusch is the author of a dozen short stories, three novellas, and two novels. She also is an editor with the speculative fiction magazine Electric Spec and the longtime proprietress of Sex Scenes at Starbucks (www.betsydornbusch.com).


 



Check out Exile, published by Night Shade Books, at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.