Meanwhile…

It’s been way too long since I posted a writing sketch! I actually posted a little bit of this a couple years ago, but I was feeling around for something to work on at the write-in tonight and worked on it some more. I don’t think there will be any more to it. A little over 800 words.

Anyway, it reminded me of how much I like writing this particular pair of characters (if you want to find more of them, you can look here). One of these days I need to sit down and write the Chuck Chaykin novel that is quietly smoldering in a corner of my brain.

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Work is killing me, so I really haven’t had any time to get much done. I have, however, managed to squeeze out an article for the Flash Fiction Chronicles. You can read it here.

I’m thinking of making a regular series of articles here about the sort of thing featured in that post. Each week feature something that I think is awesome to write about. I’d talk about why they are important to storytelling and point out what I think are a few good examples. Any interest in that?

Whatever attempt at NaNo I might have made is a complete bust. I simply haven’t had any time with all this overtime at work. But at lunch last week I managed what may be the first rough paragraph of a Chuck Chaykin novel. Enjoy. Continue reading

So it seems that NaNo is right around the corner. Hurm. I was going to pretty much pass on NaNo this year, as I never seem to really get much out of it. It’s fun, but at the end of the month I end up with nothing that’s actually useful. I’m starting to think the whole exercise is maybe not the great idea that everyone thinks it is. I think for some people it encourages a kind of “wait until November and do it then” mentality that is counterproductive. Either way, by the end of the month you’re likely so sick of whatever it is you just pounded out that you don’t ever want to look at it again.

However, I think I may take advantage of the extra write-ins and the spirit of productivity that NaNo creates to work on expanding my Chuck Chaykin story into a novel. It’s already over 8,000 words, which is a little long to sell to a short story market anyway, and could easily be expanded. It’s the kind of story in which a publisher like Baen or Tor might be interested.

The trick will be weaving the two characters together. Chaykin is a rough and bitter mercenary, albeit one who is a bit of a softy deep down. His sidekick, Val, is a teenage orphan girl raised in a prep school for psychics. They have certain shared experiences that bring them together, and I know there’s a fun chemistry between the two, but their stories before they meet are so vastly different that it may be difficult to easily switch between the two plots. Or should I skip her story and not introduce her until they meet? I don’t want to shortchange her, but I’m afraid it would seem like two completely different books crammed together.

I’ll have to do a little world (or universe, rather) building. I have a general idea of how the setting works, but I haven’t worked out specifics.

More importantly, I’ll need to design the ship. In any setting where the heroes spend their time mostly aboard some sort of vessel instead of a particular city or planet, the ship becomes not just the setting but a character unto herself. I’ll need to work out how big Chaykin’s ship is, how many rooms, how it’s laid out, etc. The ship isn’t really featured much in the short story, so I didn’t have to worry about it before. Heck, I had a hard time even coming up with a name.

At any rate, you get the idea. I’ll probably spend the next few weeks working on these issues and if I can come up with a decent working outline I may go for it. I don’t know if I’ll go for the insane NaNo pace, but with a little energon and a lot of luck I’ll get a significant amount of work done.

Just playing around with Chuck Chaykin and his pal a little bit more, I came up with this fun scenario. Mostly I just wanted to write Chuck fighting some space shark pirates.

Something that I haven’t really had to worry about before is how to handle character development and description for characters who I’ve already written about (and, hopefully, published). It’s something I’ll have to start thinking about if I keep writing about these two particular characters. I can’t assume that people have read a previous Chuck Chaykin story, so some basic retreading will be required. But at the same time, I won’t want to bore returning readers (hah!) with the same exposition every time.

I’m getting ahead of myself, of course. But it’s fun to imagine that someday that might be an issue.

I’ll need to finish polishing up “Telepath’s Lament” and get that submitted before really working on anything else, but this might make a fun flash piece some time. About 300 words so far, currently untitled. The last line is silly, so I apologize in advance.

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Group reaction to Telepath’s Lament was positive. There are a few things I need to fix, but overall I think it’s a pretty solid, fun story. I should have it ready to market by the end of the month. First destination: Writer’s of the Future (I need to check the deadlines, but I believe I have plenty of time to make the current quarter). After it fails there I have some ideas for regular markets where I think it would fit well.

In the meantime, I have a flash piece to write for a new market. I’ve started but I’m not sure I like the beginning.

On the television front, I’m greatly saddened by all the rumors of cancellation swirling around Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It’s not a perfect show, but when it’s good it’s really good, and the season finale left us on a hell of a cliffhanger.

I think I’m done with Dollhouse. I suppose it has clawed its way from mediocre to, what would be above that, tolerable? But tolerable doesn’t make it worth my time. I find the premise boring and the characters to be uninteresting or poorly drawn. There have been some fun plot twists and a few cool scenes, but overall it has failed to engage me. And, seriously Joss, finding new excuses every week to have hot girls dressed in nothing doesn’t help the feminist cred.

Maybe if this week they kill off three quarters of the cast and shift the focus of the series I might stick around. But I imagine that won’t happen.

It’s odd. For the first time in a long time there won’t be any geeky television for me to watch. Battlestar is done. Terminator may not be back. Everything else is either terrible, didn’t catch my interest, or I missed out on the beginning. All I have is a sitcom or two and a cop show, and I’d probably be okay with losing those (except 30 Rock, that show is too good to end). Very odd situation to find myself in. There’s pretty much always been something on or something to look forward to.

Well, there is this. But I don’t want to get my hopes up too early.

Telepath’s Lament, the first feature-length Chuck Chaykin story, is complete! Well, first draft complete. It clocks in at about 9,100 words. I’m pretty happy with it, but it has been sent out to the writing group for critique. I made some plotting choices that may prove controversial, but I deemed necessary to prevent the story from becoming gimmicky. We shall see!

Look in this space next week for a post about how I hate the story and it needs heavy revisions.

As I await judgement from my peers, I move along. I’ve been invited to submit to a new market, which is pretty exciting. This morning as I rose from the old coffin I came up with a fun idea for them. All I will say: pasty librarian + ancient undersea civilization.

I’ve been roped into helping judge a writing contest at a local elementary school. It’s 4th and 5th graders, which is right around the time I started writing. Based on my own memories of that time, I expect the entries to be simultaneously cute and bizarre. I don’t think we’ll start seeing material until May, but I’ll make sure to post about it then.

It kind of tempts me to dig up the stories I wrote back then. Then I remember that they were about a tyrannosaur with a predilection for pizza.

I don’t really know kids all that well, which might sound odd based on many of my hobbies and interests. I’m not really around kids much, and I never really know what to do with them when I am. It’s only in the last few months that some of my friends have been popping up preggers. I have a couple of nephews and a niece, but only one is at what I would consider usefully sentient, at the age of nine. Babies don’t really have much to offer, other than seeing how the adults around them react.

So in general I don’t really know how to write kids, which I consider something of a deficiency. I encountered this problem when I wrote “Aftershocks,” which features a young girl. Mostly I just wasn’t sure what age to make her exactly – is X age too old to exhibit this behavior? And physically, would she be able to do what the story needs? And this wasn’t even a character who needed to speak or narrate. I envy those who can really capture a child’s voice believably.

In “Telepath’s Lament,” the space western I’m working on, Chuck’s co-star is Val, a young telepath of about 16-18. I find myself worrying not so much about her voice and behavior – I’ve already written a couple of flash pieces featuring her at a somewhat older age, so I think I have her personality pretty well established. In general I think young people are easier to write once they get into their teens. Or at least, I remember what it’s like to be that age, which makes it easier.

There are a couple of things to watch for, though. By making her young, do I risk inadvertently creating a new Jubilee? (I actually like Jubilee, but lots of people despised the mallrat Kitty Pryde proxy like she was the second coming of Gambit. Whom I also don’t mind.)

Non-geek translation: I don’t want the audience to be annoyed by her. Teenagers are by definition annoying, so I’ll have to be careful.

Something else I’ll have to keep in check is potential sexual tension between her and Chuck. It shouldn’t be there. I’m aiming for him to initially be a father figure, then as she matures it’ll be more of a partnership. It’s impossible to predict how people will read into something, but the last thing I want is to inadvertantly create a creepy situation. It should be easy to avoid, and it’s a lesser concern than the first point, but definitely something to keep in mind as I figure out their banter and the rhythm of their relationship.

Anyone with opinions on writing kids? Not writing for kids, that’s a whole other subject, but actually capturing a realistic child-like voice and manner? Chime in!

I’ve added a little random quote widget up above there (because putting it to the side screws up my widget bar for some reason), with little nuggets from my published and soon-to-be published stories. Pretty nifty, eh? There’s only about eleven in there right now, but with a little Energon and a lot of luck that number will rise. Speaking of which, my pulp story is out again, preparing the way for another rejection! I await its return with baited breath.

I’ve had a major breakthrough on my space western. Several, even. I’m pounding out a working outline/summary, which it seems is what I have to do any time I write a story that’s longer than 1,500 words. I’m rather liking it. Which is good, because it’s due to the writing group for critique in a little over a week, I think. If I can actually get the story written in that time, it’ll be pretty fast, for me anyway.

So here’s the beginning, the opening hook, if you will. The details will likely change as the rest of the story shapes up, but I think it’s a pretty fun beginning. (I’m not sure about the villain’s name, for example; it sounds appropriately evil, but I feel like I’m accidentally stealing it from somewhere that I just can’t remember.)

I’ve had the “gift in German” trivia rolling around in my head for years waiting for a story. Literally like a decade. Seemed like a good time to use it.

I’m actually starting to get excited for this story. That will make my inevitable failure all the more sweet… Continue reading

I thought I’d play around with my fun space adventurer, Chuck Chaykin, again. (The original Chaykin sketch can be found here.)

There’s a long proud line of these sorts of characters. Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds, Heath Huston. These characters and their stories are undeniably fun and some of the most endearing heroes in science fiction. They’re mercenary, but cuddly. They are simple to understand, with pretty clear motivations, but they’re also layered in a way that makes them complex and interesting despite that. They have a nobility about them that fans can innately sense. Above all, they are relatively ordinary people who have the capacity for greatness.

And they usually have some cool spaceships.

That’s basically what I’m aiming for with Mr. Chaykin and his cute telepathic comrade, Val. Set in a space western-style universe, they have adventures hunting down robot pirates and protecting small towns from tentacled bandits. I may sit down and write their first adventure together as my story for this year’s Writer’s Ink themed collection.

It’s an interesting puzzle to work out what words to use to describe Chaykin and Val’s mental conversations. Should I just replace every “said” with “thought” ? What happens then when they really just think something to themselves? Or should I simply establish that they’re conversing telepathically and then use standard dialogue tags (this is what I’m leaning toward)? It’s something I’ll have to work out. Anyone have any recommendations of books with lots of telepathic interaction?

So here’s another quick Chaykin sketch, in which our heroes find themselves in dire straights! Just a few hundred words.

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It’s another Chuck Chaykin, Bounty Hunter! adventure. I wasn’t feeling all that creative today. Around 600 words or so I realized I used pretty much the same premise tonight as I did a couple days ago. Hmm.

A little over 900 words. I really need a name for Chuck’s ship. Continue reading