parent nodes: StarSpawn | Upcoming Conventions
Odyssey Con
Odyssey Con 2008 took place Apr 4-6, 2008, in Madison WI at the Radisson on the southwest part of town. The two guests of honor were Kage Baker, a wonderful lady, and George R. R. Martin, who has been around the science fiction scene longer than a lot of you have been alive.
Never let it be said that wives or spouses do not play an important part because Connie helped establish some absolutely great contacts. Among them is Jim Frenkel, which probably wouldn't mean much, except that he is the senior editor at TOR books and he has been around almost as long as George Martin.
Jim's wife is the wonderful Joan Vinge, who is an accomplished author in her own right. My wife and her struck up a conversation on marriage and families (Jim and Joan have been married almost as long as Connie I (42 years June 7). And Connie told her the story (as wives often do) of our life with raising our children, how they pretty much never remember when dad wasn't writing on his books and that dad now has thirteen finished books and because we are pretty much retired from my former life in computers (unless, of course, a job comes along), we are now working full time to get my books published. Joan told my wife that I needed to talk to her husband.
Well, a little later, I was attending a session where Jim was a member of the panel and Connie was with me. Now Connie has this little "friend" she picked up at Millenicon and she proudly has him perched on her shoulder. The friend, is a dragon, properly proportioned and definitely attracts attention. Jim spotted the dragon and as we were getting ready to leave, he said, "I need to talk with you..."
I had attended a couple of sessions before then and had come to the conclusion that I needed to "recast" my first books (I'll mention this more later) and so I wasn't ready to speak with him, but, of course, you don't turn down an invitation to talk. So we talked about my stories and what I was doing and he expressed an interest and gave me his card. He knew that it would be a while before I was ready to do any kind of submissions, but the fact that I had continued to write and was continuing to write the saga, appeared to leave a favorable impression.
Later, in another session, he evidently felt comfortable enough with me to joke a bit during the session...
And then we attended a session wherein Jim and George reminisced about science fiction and when they first got involved. While these two were not born when the first con took place (back in the 1930s - science fiction has been around for a l-o-n-g time, the fact that Jim looked me up at the urging of his wife, well, I'm not sure my stories are worthy of that kind of attention.
The other important person at the convention was another fellow that had been around for a long time and had started his career as an author - successful, I might add. Jack Byrne, according to him, backed into the agent business and we chatted a bit, again, getting to know each other. My mention of Jim (with whom he is a friend) opened doors there and while Jack may not end up representing me, he also gave me his business card and when I'm ready to start submitting the stories, I need to contact him.
Mister Byrne represented my favorite female author before she died - the great Andre Norton, whose coming of age stories has influenced the overall theme of the star spawn saga. I really wish we had had more time, because I would liked to have learned more about her and what she was like.
Now, just knowing and name recognition with these fine folks is not enough. I do not have any kind of commitment from either, nor would I expect to have any. I need to get the saga into a condition where I feel it is ready for submission. Jim expressed some doubts that I can pull off the overall theme of the saga, which is the creation/birth and subsequent coming of age of The Goddess of a future existence. I'm almost there and those of you who have the finished novels know that Julie (sorry, but that's a spoiler) is that future goddess. There is just one remaining novel to be told of her story and I will likely start it before the end of the year.
According to Jack, publishers are very interested in multiple book series for a number of reasons. The idea that I have thirteen completed stories (albeit, some of them needing some serious work) and that I am actually working on recasting them, appeared to impress both gentlemen. If, for no other reason than meeting and having these two give me their cards for future contact, made the conference worth all of it.
Now to recasting... I had to have the term explained as it applies to written stories. Basically, it is not revising, but actually rewriting the story. The idea is to hide the original pages being recast and to rewrite the story from memory. This does a couple of things for me - one, it brings the story to my current level of writing. Two, it tends to make the story tighter.
When I was a tech writer at Heathkit/Zenith Data Systems, the editor would occasionally stop by and ask me to explain something I had written. And of course, I did. When I finished, he would ask why I hadn't said that in the first place.
That new text is the recast text of the work.
And that has to happen for the first two novels.
It has to happen for a major part of the third book and parts of the fourth. Whether or not I need to do it for later books or not may be another thing, but I suspect that The Cleric is also looking at being recast, simply to help the story line.
Now, to some specifics. Most of you (I have some new readers, by the way - well new in that they are looking at the stories for the first time in a long time) know that part of the saga takes place on a planet where society is at a Medieval stage of sorts. When you don't have a earth-based culture, you can do anything with it so I have a lot of latitude - as much as I'm willing to allow myself.
One of the sessions dealt with Shakespeare (these conventions run heavy toward the fantasy end of the spectrum) and the language of Shakespeare. The session was wonderful in that I received the equivalent to notes from a college course on the subject. Anyway, Kage Baker writes fantasy in the Elizabethan era and she has a solid grasp (having taught the subject) on the language of culture of the time. I could spend a lot of time talking about what I learned, but it would likely bore you, so I'll pass for now. Anyway, Elizabethan language is not the same as Medieval language. For those of you unfamiliar with Elizabethan use of things like thee, thou, thy, and you need to look at the original King James Bible (not one of the new "modernized" versions).
Thee, thy, and thou are used in familiar settings whereas you is used between strangers. Something I didn't know. Thee is plural whereas thy is a singular form (you tends to be all encompassing). So when I say, "I need to speak with thee," I'm addressing more than one person. "That is thy sword" is specific to a single individual...
Sir is perfectly fine for sire...
One of the things that Kage mentioned is that when writing for that time period, it isn't as much the words used, but the rhythm of the dialog that counts. When Jon says, "of a truth," we would use "that is true." That's the difference in rhythm.
All the cleric's world stories are going to see a revision for these things.
In another panel, we talked about pov (point of view). Bottom line: do not switch point of view without reason. It is permitted in the same "scene" but there must be a reason for moving from one point of view to another. For the first novel, it is recast time...
Also, the stories need a strong sense of structure.
Now to readers...
Basically, I need feedback, and very specific feedback. One of the authors had just gotten their first book published last year (it is now on the New York best seller's list). Basically, he used 300 readers (that's about three times the number that have seen my first book) and he expected them to give him solid feedback. He would give each a copy of the work and a red pen...
Bottom line: I need readers who, if you spot anything (and I mean anything) that bothers you with any manuscripts I send you, I want to hear about it. Don't worry about offending me or making me angry - that won't happen.
To those reading my site and who are NOT one of my readers but would like to become one - contact me (see the link page for my address). We'll talk about what I expect from my readers. And no, your only pay would be your name in the acknowledgments page when the story is published.
Short stories: While I haven't set a goal for new short stories, I'm considering a target of one a month... They will provide a nice break in working with the longer novels.
The idea is to practice the art of writing... practice, practice, practice. And short stories are the way to go.
I will not publish any new short story to the site until I have exhausted all possible avenues in the paying world.
For those of you who do not know me, I have stayed away from reading other works for a large part of the time over the past 18 years of my creating the star spawn universe and stories.
Big mistake on my part.
Three things I need to do:
ReadWriteSubmit
That's the order. Read voraciously. It provides a good escape away from my own work and it teaches me what others are doing. In addition, I will learn to spot "problem" areas in others' works and that will make me a better writer.
Basically, I need to treat this like a business. The writers do work on multiple projects. They resubmit their stories over and over until they are accepted somewhere. Jack and Jim both say to start with the best-paying markets first, then move downward from there... Also, know where to send my stories.
New definitions: Multiple submissions are sending multiple stories to the same place. Simultaneous submissions are sending the same story to multiple places at the same time. The first is permissible. The second is not. Wait for a response before sending the story to another place, even if it means several months or even a year or more passes.
Some agents will submit short stories, but most want nothing to do with them. Having an agent is important where contracts are concerned. The agent is paid, who, in turn, pays the writer. The writer never pays anyone for anything. Not reading, not editing, nothing.
There was a session on taboos and the obscene.
Taboos are those things in a setting with one or more persons that are not acceptable in that setting. For instance, if we had all stripped down and walked around with nothing one, that would not have been acceptable - for that setting. If this had been a naturalist retreat, then it would have been. That's a taboo. It is often unspoken and the unspoken taboos have the most strength. If you talk about them, that weakens the taboo and invites violation.
Taboo is not specific to words used (in many cases), but to concepts of what might be done. Taboos often involve violating old (treasured) things.
The obscene is generally spoken, but it can include gestures. Obscenity is in the eye (or hearing) of the beholder. Curse words are interesting - when I, as a writer, create a curse word, it needs to be satisfying and feel good to the one saying it. It may not accomplish anything other than make the speaker feel better about the situation. The words tend to be short and easy to say. For women (according to Kage Baker), s-h-i-t is good because it can be hissed under the breath. Shhhh - it! Try it and you'll see what I mean.
Comment: older works can stand to be rewritten in a new setting. We talked about Jules Verne and specifically address 20,000 Leagues under the sea. If you take the humanity out of the story, all you have is something that goes "clank." The humanity of the story is what makes it work and while Disney did a wonderful job with the story, they downplayed the conflict within Nemo and why he did what he did with the Nautilus. That story hasn't been done in a while and is worthy of thinking about.
Who knows? Maybe you'll see something that deals with man's inhumanity toward man in a future story of mine. It has some very real possibilities.
The star spawn saga is (right now) sixteen volumes long. Every book, while part of the series, also needs to be free standing. That is, if someone picks up one of the books, they don't have to have read the earlier stories to understand what is happening in the new one.
I had one reader read the stories out of sequence (about ten years ago) and at that time, it could be done. I need to make sure it can be done with every story in the saga and I'm not sure that is the case for some of the later books (particularly between Mutant and Final Battle and within the four Cleric's World stories that follow). The other problem area is the break that happened with book three - where I split it to bring the story down to manageable size.
In reading it, I think a bit of recasting will suffice to make the two halves stand alone.
Big books. I have now run into several cases where first authors have successfully published b-i-g first books. The recasting for books one and two will restore all the plot lines that I yanked when I condensed them.
Writer workshop. While the majority of the conference dealt nicely with writer concerns, the best part was the last - it was a critiquing workshop for the first 1000 - 1500 words of a novel. I took in the current "front end" for The Waken Incident.
It doesn't work.
There is no conflict.
While the change of command is good, there is no "setting the hook" needed to attract the attention of an editor or agent. Which is why I'm not ready to submit any of the stories.
So, what do I need to do?
I need to reintroduce (now missing) a description of the ship (which will differentiate the story from the Star Trek universe). I need to show or explain why the ship is on sentry duty.
What does this mean?
It means that you are going to get bits and pieces as I recast the first story. I'll be sending out a new front end, possibly later today.
I expect critical feedback. What I want is for you to tell me if what I send you would cause you to want to buy the book if you didn't know anything else about it.
Sarah Monette, who conducted the workshop, acknowledged that I have a formidable task in front of me, so this is trial and error and why I need the feedback.
I'm not sure I'll be able to introduce engaging conflict, but we'll see.
It also moves the beginning of the story to a point earlier than I had used for most of the iterations... I had it in the original and I think it was present in the second iteration, which means that three of you may have seen this back in the early 1990s.
My wife and I count our experience at the con as extremely valuable. Not only did we meet some very important people who may play a large part in my future as a published author (or not, as the case may be), but I also picked up a lot of good, useful information.
The next con is also in Madison and is WisCon, the leading feminist science fiction convention in the world. It isn't as bad as it sounds. Jim and George talked about those early conventions which took place at the beginning of the equal rights' movement (as it applied to women) and they were pretty wild. Today's conventions are milder by comparison, although I can expect some strongly expressed opinions, which is fine. I don't have a problem with others expressing their social and political views - after all, I use my stories to do it, too.
Page created April 07, 2008
Page updated April 17, 2008