Adam Christopher | Steampunk and dark fantasy author. Now with added superheroes!
Adam Christopher is a New Zealand-born SF writer living in the sunny north of England.Archive for May, 2009
The best beard in fantasy
Let me tell you about all the ways that Patrick Rothfuss is a god among men.
Firstly, he’s a nice guy. Really nice. Secondly, he has an awesome beard. Really awesome. It’s long and full and has two grey streaks in it. Thirdly, he fences, like me, and fences epee, like me.
Fourthly, he wrote the best book I’ve ever read, The Name of the Wind. It’s his first novel. It’s something like 250,000 words of heaven. And for all that length, not a single word is wasted, every one is essential. It’s brilliant.
Fifthly, Patrick Rothfuss signed a copy of this book for me last night when he gave a talk at the Deansgate Waterstones in Manchester. He laughed at my quote request (despite someone ahead of me in the line stealing it) and chatted to my wife.
All of these things make Pat awesome. Awesome to the max.
I first got wind of The Name of the Wind around April 2007, when Pat was interviewed on my favourite book-related podcast, DragonPage Cover to Cover. That interview more than two years ago was fascinating, as he described all the things he did wrong when it comes to writing a fantasy novel, and how, despite breaking every publishing rule in the book (a 250,000-word first novel with no bad guy?), he produced one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written. Well, that’s not quite how he described his own book, that’s how I’m describing it.
I picked it up in December 2007, having been given a bookstore gift card. I read the book in December 2008, mostly in my car in a parking lot near my old workplace each freezing winter morning. When I was done, I wondered why on Earth it had taken me more than a year and half to read this work of art.
I forgot my camera last night, but it was a terrific couple of hours. He read from book two in the Kingkiller Chronicles, and talked about how the version of The Name of the Wind that was published was actually the 400th draft. This was particularly interesting, because, as he pointed out, that meant there were 399 versions of the novel before the published version that were not as good. It was all, he said, down to perseverance. Although I didn’t get a chance to ask him about his writing habits, he hit the money with that point. Perserverence.
As a writer, you have to keep going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going. Write one book, then a second, then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth, then a sixth. Even though The Name of the Wind is Pat’s first book, he actually wrote it 400 times, so he had a lot of practice and a lot of sticking power.
So, any lessons learnt from last night? Yep. Write and keep writing, and then when you’re done, write some more.
On the way out, my wife said I could grow a beard like Pat’s when I get my book deal. I think I can probably beat Pat in that department, as I’ve got goddamn white in my beard (none of this half-assed grey business). So I’m really looking forward to the day when we meet up as fellow authors at a con somewhere, and can argue about fantasy and beards and the best episode of Firefly long into the night.
The difficult second album
This is weird.
Back when I was writing my first novel, Dark Heart, I got about a third of the way through and started to panic. I was finding it hard to write in the pseudo-Victorian style, and as I’d decided to make it first person from about six different points of view it seemed like I was deliberately making it as difficult as possible. I considered stopping, and switching to my superhero story (now called Seven Wonders), which I thought would be much easier as it’s a modern-day, third-person book. Standard fare, easy to write.
Fortunately I saw good sense and kept on with Dark Heart, and shortly after my angst I found the natural pace of it and the whole thing took off. I was done in a couple of months, with 120,000-ish words done. That book was put in the draw to be worried about later this year.
Seven Wonders has reached about 20,000 words, and is completely horrible to write. This is my first full-length third-person novel, and I’m finding the style very, very dull. Sure, I’ve read plenty of great third-person books, and most people prefer it to first (and nobody uses second, unless the book is deliberately strange). But it’s boring to write, and boring to read back. Maybe I’m destined to write steampunk and alternate Victorian histories. Maybe superheroes, as much as I love them, are not for me, at least in prose form.
So now it occurs to me I’ve hit exactly the same point as I did in Dark Heart, where I have convinced myself it’s all worthless and that I’m better off switching to something else.
It feels worse this time, but then I’m probably just saying that. I’m sure the Dark Heart roadblock was just as bad. And the thing is I need to get my writing habits down pat, which means finishing this 100,000 word novel so I can get on to the next one. If I allow myself to stop a book mid-flow once, I’ll let myself do it twice, three times, etc. By the year’s end I’ll have written half a million words and have four abandoned novels.
The problem, I suppose, is that I’m worrying about what I write. There are two things I need to remind myself of.
One, the first draft is going to be cack. This is the vomit draft, the type anything draft, the get the story down on paper so you don’t forget the plot draft. This is about typing 100,000 words, one after another, until I reach the end. Nobody will ever read this draft. Which brings me to:
Two, any and all problems in the first draft will be fixed in the rewrite. So I write a page of the worst prose ever produced by a human being. So what? When it comes to draft two, I’ll spot it a mile off and will rewrite it until it’s good. Easy.
At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. If I can fool my conscious mind into believing those two facts, perhaps my subconscious will do the work for me and will get the remaining 80,000 words down. And the quicker I get those words down, the quicker I can file this away as novel number 2, and get on with the third. Novel 1 was an achievement; novel 2 will show me that it wasn’t a fluke.
Ok, problem solved. Thanks for listening!
The One Rule, and how I broke it
No sooner had I posted my little lecture on making writing the ONLY thing you do, I went and got a gig reporting on the Bristol Comic Expo last weekend. I knew as soon as it was arranged that this was going to put a serious dent in my writing schedule, and I was dead right. Quite apart from the 6-hour round trip to Bristol and back, and two nights away from home, taking notes from three 1-hour audio recordings, then turning them into three 3000-word articles, is one metric buttload of work – this, and the fact that I bizzarely decided to write a short story at the same time (more on that later). But as a DC fan through-and-through, the chance to hear Dan DiDio in person was just too good an opportunity to miss, and despite it taking a big bite out of my novel time, it was a fantastic weekend. My first report is up on CBR, and you can enjoy it here. My hat is off to CBR editor Jonah Weiland for making my articles look so good with lots of tasty comic art to accompany them!
However, although my wordcount suffered, it was a very worthwhile experience for one important reason. Getting a peek into the inner workings of a comics company as large as DC was an incredible inspiration – there are dozens of creators, writers and artists working very hard to keep an entire universe of characters and storylines going. The planning and management of such a vast mythos as the DCU requires, according to Dan, rooms full of whiteboards and blackboards and story charts, all kept under tight security.
And then it occurred to me. It was all about the story. Hearing it from Dan himself, and the host of DC creators who were at the expo, it was patently clear that the number one priority was telling good stories.
That, to me, is a wonderful inspiration, that people are striving so hard to entertain others with works of fiction. And really, fiction, the written word – be it book, novel, short story, comic, screenplay, theatre script, even the scripting in a computer game – is what most of us spend most of our leisure time seeking. Human culture derives most of its entertainment – and let’s face it, the persuit of happiness is mainly what life is about – from storytelling.
This is perhaps not news to a lot of people. But sometimes you come to these kind of realisations, even though it was staring you right in the face. This is a good thing.
So after a weekend and a week buried deep in the DC universe, I’ve emerged recharged and re-inspired. And of course, I happen to actually be writing a superhero novel anyway, caught somewhere between the brightly coloured spandex of the Justice League of America and the muted adult tones of Watchmen.
Seven Wonders then has hit 14,377 words, which leaves 85,663 to go. I’ll need to rejig my timetable as I’m about two weeks off schedule, but with a bit of luck this new-found creative energy will let me build up a bit of momentum, and I’ll be able to get some extra words down to catch up. And in fact the 6,800 word short story I wrote in the three days immediately following from Bristol was a really good exercise in getting the imagination back in gear.
But more on that later!
Justice League International (Bristol branch)
A slight diversion, but as I’m writing a superhero novel, an entirely appropriate one.
Dan DiDio and the author*. *Accuracy of statement not guaranteed in all States and territories.
Spent a terrific weekend at the Bristol Comic Expo stalking DC Comics‘ very own Senior VP and Executive Editor Dan DiDio. He’s a brilliant speaker, and given the mind-boggingly awesome state that the DC Universe is in at the moment, his two panels (DC Nation and the DCU) were entertaining and fascinating.
Anyway, you’ll be able to read full reports from yours truly on the panels (plus Dave Gibbon’s chat about Watchmen) at comicbookresources later in the week.
Now, back to the writing!
Writing is the only thing you do
By coincidence, just as was thinking about time management and how to kick-start the writing habit that I’d at least partially lost once I’d finished Dark Heart, a couple of blogs I follow made some good points about sacrifice and procrastination, two key concepts that all serious writers need to get to grips with. Sure, it wasn’t news to me, but sometimes you need someone to state the obvious to you before it clicks. And then once it has clicked, you can correct the behaviour, see the positive change in your work, and move on up.
Couple o’ years ago, I helped out someone with a comic website, only to discover after a couple of months that she was canning the entire project. But you like comics, I said, and your website is terrific. She agreed, but she also revealed that she was now committing all her energies to her writing. She was working on a big epic fantasy series (7 books I think), and was going to focus entirely on them. While I admired her dedication, I thought she was also a little bit crazy. Give up writing about comics? Give up an awesome website?
Thing is, she was completely right.
If you’re serious about writing, about turning a hobby into a job, it has to be your number one priority. Writing has to be what you do. Everything else – including your day job, which most of us have to keep going – is secondary. What do you do? You write. What are you? A writer. When a friend tells you about all the exciting things they did at the weekend, you can tell them how you sat at home and wrote.
Actually it applies to anything you want – if you have a goal in life, and you want to achieve that goal, it has to be what your entire life is about until you reach it. Fair enough, some people don’t have goals or ambitions like that, and that’s fine. But for those of us who do, it becomes our entire purpose.
That’s not to say you have to abandon friends, family and leisure time, but you have to make sacrifices and plan how you spend your time. I play World of Warcraft, but I took all of March off the game to finish Dark Heart. Now that I’m playing again, I’ve noticed my productivity drop. The solution is simply to play less. This also applies to other hobbies – I used to write for a few websites, I did book reviews, comic reviews, etc. I’ve cut them all out, gone completely cold turkey, so I can focus on writing. It’s dangerous to fool yourself into thinking you’re getting your name out there and that any writing is good writing – it’s not. Any writing you do that isn’t on your story is wasted.
Ok, that’s an exaggeration. If you can schedule some extra stuff into your LEISURE time (but not your WRITING time, note the distinction), that’s cool. This blog, for instance. Twitter, etc. Just don’t pretend that that is writing.
All this came to mind this week as I’m off on Friday to the Bristol Comic Show, where I’ll be reporting for Comic Book Resources. DC chief editor Dan DiDio will be there, running a couple of DC panels, so the opportunity is too good to miss. But the first thing that crossed my mind was that it was cutting into my writing time, because the reports are going to be writing that isn’t my novel. But looking at it from another side, it’s actually a job of work, so really I will be going to Bristol, attending the con and reporting on it during the day, and my morning/evening writing routine should continue uninterrupted, albeit from a hotel in Portishead instead of my desk at home.
Putting writing time as your number one priority takes a change of mindset and a little effort, but it’ll pay off. Stephen King said that if you can’t spend 3-4 hours a day reading and writing, you will not become a good writer. One of my favourite (living) authors, A. Lee Martinez, reminds us not to sweat the small stuff. Literary agent Nathan Bransford asks what we’ve had to give up in life to write. It’s all about balance, with a healthy dose of time management thrown in. But remember, you’re a writer, you write, that’s what you do. Anything and everything else comes second place.
So stop reading this and start typing. And I’ll stop sounding like a lame-ass motivation expert on a semi-guilt trip (did I mention I only cranked out 500 words this morning?) and get back to the book.
