Warning, warning! Crisis Incoming!

So, I'm having a crisis here. The next part of LAOS is nearly ready to go up - only, in a way, it's been ready to go up before I even started this venture. Because you see, the version you guys are reading is not the original version. I have about 5k worth of story that I wrote a year or so ago, and it's different, and I'm frustrated.

See, in the original version, instead of getting a Ping Pong ball in an improbably-placed cup, Chris puts his hand through a desk. Much more exciting, makes the point much more clearly, and is just... more fun. Only problem is, no matter how many impossible things these guys can do, even the LAOS can't actually put their hand through a desk. *sigh*

So I'm rewriting that section to the Ping Pong ball event - only, as I said, it's frustrating me. The original had a spark that this version is just... missing. *more sighs*

I'm stuck. On the one hand, I think you guys would like the original a lot more (I do). On the other hand... It's really truly not plausible, and I wanted LAOS to remain at least theoretically possible. And as one beta-reader pointed out, if they can phaze through solids by manipulating atomic structure, there is technically no limit to what they can do - and magic (scientifically explained or not) without limits is not great fiction.

What do I do???

Do You Hate Spoilers And Reread Books?

I read a really great post today by Michelle over at The Innocent Flower about endings, and it reminded me of something I read somewhere ages ago (no clue where, sorry): if finding out how the story ends is so important, why do we reread?

It's an interesting question, I think, and not one I'd considered prior to reading whatever it was that I read. As Michelle says, a lot of people, myself included, tend to make a big deal when someone 'ruins' or 'spoils' the ending of a story for us - though some people, like my mum, can't start a book unless they've flipped to the end first to see how the story will wrap up. And I confess, a couple of times I've flipped back just to make sure a beloved character actually makes it to the end O:) :D

But why is that we make such a fuss about not knowing the ending? Hands up how many people have ever reread a book because they loved it? My hand goes up about a million times :D (Just check out 'July' for each year in my list of books I've read ;)) But when we reread, the ending is already spoiled - so why bother reading the book if we already know what's happened? Obviously, there is a lot more to reading a book than simply wanting to find out how the story ends. I know for me, it's often that I want to spend more time with the characters, or in the world - or some particular event is just so cool and so well-motivated (in terms of the author building up to it etc) that I just want to relive the experience. Books are cool like that: have an experience you love, and you're free to hit rewind and replay the experience as often as you like!

I'd be really interested to explore whether this reaction differs between people of different reading habits; do people who reread books often have a higher tolerance for endings being spoiled? And do people who rarely reread hate it when endings are spoiled? Do people who read LOTS have a higher or lower tolerance? And is there actually any correlation here at all, or am I just searching for that mythical Theory of Everything?

Interesting ideas. Let me know your thoughts (and whether or not you hate endings being spoiled, and whether or not you reread lots! :D).

Research or Lie?

"A writer that delves into topics he doesn’t know has three choices, research, be vague, or learn to lie convincingly. The art of writing fiction is not so much being right, it is convincing the reader he is right, or entertaining him at a level where he simply doesn’t care."

I read the above quote in a writing forum recently, and it made me stop and think - especially since it was on a thread about the alternate history genre and the importance of research in stories. I read this and stopped, because ultimately, I think it's right. I DO think research is important, especially for a really convincing alternate history... But I'm also a perfectionist. That has an impact on many areas of my life, but it's particularly obvious in writing, and is the reason I stay away from writing historicals or alternate historicals.

Why? Because I'll never know enough. This is what my mind is convinced of, anyway. No matter how much research I do, no matter how many books I read, I'll still never know enough to present another time period convincingly. Which is rubbish, I know, but the thought is strong enough that, as I said, I shy away from writing in the history genres.

I'm having this problem with Jesscapades, too. Jessc is set in England and I've had suggestions from some readers that the setting needs to be more specific, less vague and handwavey. Pick a real location already, they say.

Except if I do that, I'll need to research the location, investigate climates and weather patterns, learn the history, study the neighbourhoods, find some locals and quiz them on the atmosphere, the habits of the population, figure out which area my MC is most likely to live in and where she would go to work and why... And it's so. much. work.

I've tried the vague route; obviously that didn't work. I've tried the research-the-heck-out-of-it route too, spending hours with google maps, browsing everything from real estate websites to online fast food menus. In the end, all I got was frustrated, and even after those many hours, I'm no closer to knowing where Jess might live or any of it.

So I guess the next option is option 3: learn to lie convincingly. Because ultimately, the final sentence is right - readers read to be entertained, not for the veracity of the setting. So I can quit stressing over the fact that Coventry, UK doesn't have a warehouse exactly like the one I need for Jesscapades; really, it's my story, and I'm allowed to plonk a warehouse down where I need one if I need to. And perhaps the issue the betas had is not so much that I need to pick a real world location, but more that I need to make the sense of setting sharper, clearer and more detailed - make the world of the story come alive.

Do you have a preference for recognisable, real world settings over 'vague' real world settings? I'm curious, because a few of my stories take place in actual places in my head, but I'm not sure whether or not to make that obvious in the text, or whether to leave it ambiguous... What do you think??

Villain: Wanted

So, I'm writing this awesome story called L.A.O.S., which stands for the League of Absolutely Ordinary Superheroes. It's about a bunch of teens who use their super-high IQs and knowledge of scientific theory to be superheroes and save the world (L.A.O.S.: Saving the World Through Science! #ftw). I'm planning on making this a serial; each 'episode' is slated at about 15k, and there will be 6 total. The eps will be released about a month apart, and at the end will be collated into one pretty, shiny volume. *pats the imaginary volume*

So far, so good.

Only one problem: I need a villain. So, throw some ideas at me: volunteer your name, pick a superpower the villain should have, tell me what his goal in life might be - anything you like, no matter how random. And when I finally finish the stories and publish them, you'll get a mention in the acknowledgements, and a free ARC of each episode ;) :)



The League of Absolutely Ordinary Superheroes

When your IQ is so far off the scale that scientists are lining up to create new tests to measure it with and Mensa is knocking on your door, there are only two ways to go in life. You can embrace your nerdly glory and live a life condemned to exist on the fringes, without any real human contact, or you can pretend. Or you can be an arrogant jerk like Greg, but he’s practically an entire category to himself no matter which way you slice it.

Like any other normal teenager, I just wanted to belong. Okay, yeah, at first it was frustrating that the rest of the class would take hours to understand what I’d figured out in the first three seconds, but that was pretty quickly surmounted and easily dealt with: I just ignored school altogether. My real education happened in my spare time anyway; school was just somewhere I had to be, with people who I desperately wanted to like me.

They didn’t, of course. I mean, to begin with they accepted me and all, but there was always this vague sense of unease, like they knew I was hiding something, but couldn’t figure out what. And then bloody Mr Hangley had to perform what was tantamount to abuse on that poor, unsuspecting formula, and I couldn’t help myself: before I knew what I was doing, I’d opened my big gob and corrected him, and once the words started they just kept pouring out, a torrent I’d been hiding inside for so many years that when they finally spilled over, they flooded everyone within a five mile radius.

Maybe. Actually, I can only vouch for the fact that they drowned my classmates, and very nearly Mr Hangley, who stood staring at me like I’d grown horns and started tap-dancing naked on the desk. Which, thinking back, may have been the smarter thing to do.

After that, there was no going back.

Megan cornered me right after class, fists on hips and eyes flashing. “What was that, then?” she demanded.

I did my best to shrink, to blend back into the crowd – but the crowd was no longer there. Instead, guys I’d just half an hour ago called mates were edging away from me, pointing and whispering, and I stood out like I’d always known I’d one day have to, raw and naked and alone. So, eloquently, I shrugged and tried to pretend like I had no idea what she was talking about. Like lecturing your maths teacher on the subtleties of [stuff] was normal.

“I’m serious,” she said, tossing her hair. Man, you do not want to get Megan riled up. I swear, she’s part terrier or something, because once she’s latched onto something she does not let go, and she is scary. “What was up with that?”

“With what?” I snapped, shoving midgety year sevens aside so I could stomp away. Sure, that’s right, I thought. It’s not enough that my cover’s blown and I’m back to being Chris-fit again, bloody brunette Barbie has to come and rub it in, just to make sure I got the point.

The Difficult Decisions

This post is more of a random musing than anything else. I'm stuck, and I need to think out loud; and lacking any more inspiring ideas for a blog post, I thought I might as well muse here and see if any of you want to offer opinions :)

So, on Monday I signed up for Holly Lisle's revision course. Although I've 'done' the first month already, the lessons I saw were the original drafts; I'm now working from the beginning again with the 'proper' lessons.

Lesson one got me thinking when I first read it a month ago, and it's blistering in my brain again now - and I don't know how to answer it. It's all about goals, about knowing what you wanted your book to be when you started writing, about knowing what it actually is now that you've written it, and about knowing what you want it to be.

You can't hit a target you can't see, after all.

I'm using Jesscapades for this course, obviously, since it's the finished draft that I want to edit. I love this story, always have - but I am really struggling to know what I want to do with it, which is, I think, why I've stalled in edits for it so many times.

I know what I originally wanted it to be; I still have my notes on scrappy bits of paper and in random books and on random blogs and websites, talking about my plans for the book. It was to be the story of Jessana, called Jess, who is about to graduate from the Shard Academy. Shards are assassins who kill at the direction of Fate, assumedly to protect the world from people who are Better Off Dead. Only in order to graduate, she is told that she must kill John, her best friend, whom she 'knows' is innocent. So she lashes out against what she's been told, uncovers a conspiracy in the process, and More Stuff Happens.

That's what it was to be, with fights and shiny technology and intrigue.

What it is (other than a mess of a first draft O:)) is altogether less spy and more magic than I'd intended. Jess is quieter, less certain about life and death. There's virtually no technology and only one real fight. She's still told to kill John, but that's only the catalyst for the real conflict, which is the conspiracy she uncovers. But the story doesn't really end; it's blatantly a Book One - which it is, but I wish it weren't so obvious about the whole thing. I'm a big believer that each individual book in a series ought to be able to at least mostly stand alone; and Jesscapades at present does not.

So. What do I want it to be? This is the confusing part. A lot of the problem in the draft stems from the fact that my central conflict, my main story arc is confused and unclear: is it the having to kill John, or is it the fall-out from uncovering the conspiracy? Of course, it can be both, but one or the other needs to dominate so that it can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion at the end.

As it stands, the kill-John arc is concluded about 2/3rds of the way through, and the conspiracy arc isn't really concluded (because that's part of book two) - so there's nothing left to conclude at the end. I suppose, based on this, it's most sensible to draw out the kill-John arc to the end, isn't it? :)

But my major dilemma is this: Originally, the catalyst for Jess running off to join the Shards, the reason that she uncovers the conspiracy (because the conspirators have been shadowing her ever since), is the death of her sister, apparently murdered by the conspirators.

Fine and good, but for that line to work, Jess needs to step up to the plate in terms of character. She needs to become more of who she was supposed to be - a sassy, confident assassin - and less of who she became - a concerned, caring individual who wants to save everyone, and whom I'm not convinced (and neither are my beta-readers) could actually kill someone. Fight and maim, sure, but kill? Not so much.

In essence, Jess needs to be.... Tara. This is where it gets confusing. Tara is Jess's sister that was murdered - only in one lot of revisions that I started in the middle of the year, somehow, Tara didn't get murdered. Somehow, Tara ended up being the one at the Shard Academy, the one training to be an assassin, then one told to kill John. And Jess was her older sister, stuck on the outside, jealous at the attention and schooling and abilities Tara got but wary of the Shards, of their morals, of their attitudes. In this version, Tara gets in over her head when she discovers the conspiracy, and Jess has to save her.

My dilemma: at present, both stories have equal weight. Both sound like stories I want to write, and I'm in a complete deadlock over which I should write. Do I leave the original story and change Jess's character to fit? This is tricky because in my mind, Tara now has that personality. Or do I change the story to fit Jess's character, which is tricky because in a way, she's no longer the 'main' character; Tara is the one in the thick of the actual action and intrigue.

*sigh* Like I said: deadlock.

So I throw it open to you: Have you ever been in this situation? What did you do? If you were in this situation (imagination, here), what would you do? Which story sounds more appealing to you? Can you help me at all????

Thanks. :)

Why Write?

Ta da!

*looks around, beaming, arms outstretched*

*notes looks of confusion*

What, you don't like my magic trick? What magic trick? What do you mean, what magic trick? I just beamed myself all the way from October to here! I totally skipped the first week of November! I time travelled!

What do you mean, you didn't?

*eyebrow* No, of course there weren't any posts for you last week, I skipped it. Time travelling, remember? Yes?

...No? *sigh*

Well, in that case, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you... Maybe with chocolate O:)

ANYWAY.

On to today's post!

Many months ago, before I had discovered the wonders of time travel, I wrote a post asking why we, as writers, indulge in the activity of writing that most people will agree is not entirely sane.

I mean, hello: We write things down because the voices in our heads tell us too.

If they were telling us to do anything but write, let's face it: we'd be in a mental institution.

Maybe we should retrain mentally ill people to write down what the voices say they should do, rather than to do it? Just a random idea there. And yes, a close relative died in a round about way of mental illness, so I'm allowed to say things like this :P

Ahem.

Writing. It's an insane pursuit, in an insane industry; and yet we do it. We do it because we love it; we love it because... why?

Why do you love writing?

If you haven't already, go read the post from February. I came to the conclusion then that of all the myriad reasons I write, the key ones are:

a) because it makes me happy;
b) because it provides entertainment both to me and others;
c) I can push boundaries, explore emotions; and because
d) I can explore foreign experiences and worlds.

But you know what I realised last week (in October that is, because I skipped the first week of November, remember)?

All of this can be summed up in one pretty little phrase. It's so simple, it's so real, and it strips away all pretenses of things like writing for fame or money or approval, all of which can become dangerous addictions that make the act of writing something that really is insane.

No.

I don't write for any of those reasons, although sure, they'd be a nice bonus.

Why do I write?

I write because it makes me a better person.



If you're interested in reading the full essay I wrote on this, you can! Right here.

And tell me again - why do you write? Is this the same reason you used to write, or has it developed?

Fantasy Elements #3: Good Versus Evil

It's an interesting dilemma, one that all fantasy writers - if not all writers - have to deal with at some point or other. Good. Evil. Where's the line? What's the difference? And how do we deal with that in our writing?

Conventionally, the MCs are the Good Guys. People who oppose their aims are the Bad Guys. Good Guys win. Bad Guys lose.

I have an entire series that plays with this idea; it was my first novel, though, so it's not as deep as it could be, and I can't wait to sink my teeth back into it and ask and answer some of these questions.

Because that's just the thing: it isn't all as simple as that.

Maybe it was, once - in writing, if not in life. Maybe there was a time when you could get away with straw villains and two-dimensionality.

But that time is not now. Now we are post-post-modern. Now we ask questions like, "Is evil really evil? Is my evil your evil? Can we make judgements about someone else's evilness? Is there objective evilness?"

Which all means that our work has to be a lot deeper, a lot more textured - a lot closer, in many ways, to reality. The world isn't black and white, and neither should our writing be. There should be shades of grey, areas where the boundaries aren't clearly defined, where everyone's maybe acting in the way that they think best, and they're trying to do some good but doing it badly, or even trying to do some bad but doing that badly so they end up doing good. Villains should be as motivated as heros.

Heros should be motivated.

Things happen for a reason; people get entangled because they Believe In Things, whether that's God, the Universe, or Themselves. Or even Mice. 42.

It's my opinion that the most interesting stories are those that happen in the grey; they're the gritty stories, the edgy stories, the stories that leave us slightly uncomfortable with either the way things are, the way things were, or the way they someday might be. They make us think about ourselves, our lives, our culture - our own stories.

But on the other hand, sometimes evil is just evil. And black-and-white stories - like archetypal stories, like fairytales - serve a great purpose also. They remind us, in our post-post-modern world of relativity, that some things just are; that some things probably aren't subjective; that we pretty much agree on basic standards of human decency.

They remind us of the things we need to protect.

And the grey stories remind us of just how hard that can be, both to protect what needs protecting, and to decide on what needs protecting in the first place.

I'm curious: Which type of stories are you more likely to read? Which are you more likely to write? Why?

Smarter Than YOU Thought?

I forgot to mention in the earlier post: What about you? What lessons have you learned that you keep forgetting? Do you ever reread something you wrote and realise you're smarter than you thought?

Post your best lessons/advice/smarter than you thought moments in the comments :)

Think Sideways Movie #6: Revision

Today's movie, brought to you by the letter : "Revision: If the victory is long in coming."

Yes, the letter . That's right. I love editing, so you'll just have to deal :P

Today we hear about the horrors and wonders of editing, of why you should plan to do it only once and how you can do so - and why you should never try to write a book and edit it in two months. Male pregnancy, apparently, may ensure. Have fun!



And yes, I know we've hashed this out before, but there are New People reading this blog now! Huzzah! *waves to the swarms of newcomers* So tell me: Editing. Love it or hate it, and why?

Voices and Lack Thereof

...Also subtitled, 'Troublesome Characters'.

So.

I'm writing a novel called Jesscapades at the moment, right? The one-liner is 'A dedicated student assassin gets her final assignment: kill her best friend, or be killed by him.' It's not a brilliant tag-line, but it's not too shabby either. I think. The story itself has potential, and bits of world that just make me shiver and go 'Squee!'

The glass, for instance, which goes with the story behind the name of the assassin organisation. They're called Shards, and they kill at the direction of Fate. They get Fate's directions in the Glass Room, a large dome on the top of a tower filled to the brim with glass objects, all hanging from the glass ceiling, all twirling and twining in the dazzling sunlight so the room looks like gold.

When it's time for a person to be killed, their glass falls, and shatters. Shards, right?

Much squee, much happiness.

But here's the thing: right now, I'm a breath away from 60k. The first draft of the novel will be complete somewhere between 70k and 75k, and I expect that to increase by as much as 20k in edits. So the length is good.

The idea is good, the length is good.

Tension, yup, plenty of that. Twist? Oh yeah. Big twists. Conflict? Plenty. Subplots? Lots.

It works. It fits.

But.

Tonight I stumbled upon a review of Lisa Shearin's Magic Lost, Trouble Found, which is one of my all-time favouritest books evah. If, one day, I can write a character as amusing and enjoyable and entertaining as Raine, I shall die happy.

And that's precisely the thing. There's one thing missing from my list of the things that are right with my novel: characters.

Oh, sure, I have the characters. They all do their job. They drive the plot, they have needs and wants and motivations....

But right now, I simply can't convince myself to care about them. And it's not because I'm sick of the story, because I'm not. It's because they feel flat. It's because when I compare them to a kick-ass character like Raine Benares, they're weighed and found wanting.

And mostly, it's because of one thing: voice.

Recently Liana wrote a great post on finding your voice. I read it and knew it was important - but it wasn't until tonight after reading the Lisa Shearin interview as well that it all clicked.

See, my characters all sound the same. I'm teaching this great novel at school which is told through three different points of view, and the technique is fabulous: you can tell just by looking at the page - not even reading, just looking - which of the three characters is speaking.

My story has two main POV characters, and a small host of minor ones (about 6 in total, I think??) - and every single one of them sounds exactly the same. Even their dialogue sounds the same.

And right now, at this point in my writing career, I have to admit a scary thing - I'm not actually sure how to fix it. In my head, I have nothing; the characters aren't really speaking to me, I'm not hearing distinct voices for them like I have some of my other characters - and I don't really know what to do. And I have this feeling even character chats won't work.

For now, I'll plug on, and finish the draft as per plan - but if anyone has a suggestion, be it original or directing me to an article, I'm be so grateful for the help. I'm stuck, and my brain isn't offering me any answers.

Oh characters, where art thou??

Blog Tour and Pitch Poll

First up, sorry the pitches weren't up when the previous post went up! They're up now.

NB: Sadly, the gadget doesn't allow me to change the colour of the text, and of course, the default colour is BLACK. Oi. I'll have to get my html monkey to play around with things and see if this can be fixed, but in the mean time, you can read them - you just have to highlight them with the mouse to read them o.O

Of course, they're also posted below in the same order they appear in the poll, so you could, for example, note that you like sentence #1 the best and click on the first little circle that appears %-)

These are the first three sentences:

• At her father's funeral the people of the sea and the creatures of the forest both arrive to claim the newly orphaned girl as their own - and neither side is willing to let her get away.
• A no-hoper teenage boy finds an abandoned mine, haunted by the ghost of his baby sister. When his family threatens to incarcerate him if he won't keep quiet, he becomes determined to get to the bottom of the family mystery once and for all.
• Torn from his home the night before his wedding, a young man is thrown into the Labyrinth Tower to be one of four that will lead dead souls to the afterlife.

Vote for your favourite in the sidebar! And a note to all you RSSers out there - consider this your official invitation to delurk!


In other news, I've been on a blog tour! Yippee!

On Sunday, I was over at The Innocent Flower with Michelle.
Monday I was obviously here, discussing the contests! Don't forget, you still have time to enter! :)
On Tuesday I headed across to Liana Brooks' blog.
And Wednesday, today, I've been over at Myth-takes!

Wow, I've been busy :D But lots of fun. Please go check out the articles for the sake of the wonderful women who hosted me - they deserve all the traffic they can get! :D

33 Mistakes About Dogs: Podcast!

Do you ever invert words while you're writing? My latest switch was writing 'monastery' when I meant 'masonry' o.O Whoops! :D

ANYway...

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty excited about today's post. Something different is in store: a podcast! Whee! *bounces*

Only, of course, it isn't a real podcast, because blogger doesn't let you upload audio files. So it's a podcast with a pretty picture O:)

Now, you all have to promise not to mock my voice (which I dislike) or my Australian accent (which I don't mind). Okay? Promise? Excellent.

In celebration of the fact that my ebook, the 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs, will be released in a little over a week, in today's podcast I thought I'd let you have a sneak peak of the book. The podcast contains the entire introduction to the book - that's a whole two minutes of nothing but my melodious voice. Very shiny!

If this works out well, and you all decide you like this, I might consider doing it more regularly with fun stuff like story excerpts :)







If you're rather listen to this just as a podcast, leave your email address in the comments or email me and I'll send you the mp3 file.

Next week I'll be announcing a competition that will involve not one, not two, but three FREE BOOKS! Check in on Monday for details.

And if you'd like to hear the soothing sound of my voice reading out some more of the 33 Worst Mistakes About Dogs next Friday, you can go here to vote on which one of the 33 mistakes you'd like to hear me read.

Well, that's it! Have a great weekend :)

A Clarification of 'Honesty'

I mentioned last week that I think 'honesty' is an important quality of a great writer. I need to respond to the comments (sorry!), but something struck me as I was reading them: by honesty, I don't mean 'pouring out your heart', or 'wearing your heart on your sleeve', or anything like that. I don't mean pouring out the tragedies of your life, or trying to impress the reader.

In fact, I mean just the opposite. I mean 'honesty' in the sense my husband uses it when he talks about 'honest architecture' (ya, he's an architect). It means architecture without pretension, architure that embraces what it is and doesn't try to pretend to be something different, something more, or even something less. It's understated when it needs to be, it's loud if it has to be, but above all else, it's... honest. It comes from a place of integrity, without the need to impress - unless its entire point is to impress. It's something that holds true to its intent, embraces functionality as well as fancy-prettiness, and creates something that rings true.

I hope you can see how that applies to writing. It's not about wearing your emotions on your sleeve, or pouring in the smush to tug at readers' heartstrings. It's about being honest about what you're doing; it's about knowing what you're doing and why; it's about being real.

It's the exact opposite of my first short stories, which in an attempt to be 'interesting' were melodramatic and overwritten - because they weren't coming from me, from my experiences. They didn't ring true, because they weren't. I didn't have the maturity or life experiences to write about the subjects I chose - and frankly, it showed.

This is what people mean when they tell you, 'Write what you know'. It isn't about writing only in the here-and-now, because that's all you've experienced; it isn't about never writing about a married character if you're single, or only writing about your own gender, or never writing fantasy and science fiction (heaven forbid!!!); it's about letting your experiences form the basis of what you write, of writing from your own pain, your own suffering, extrapolating from things you've actually felt and translating them into similar situations, even if the characters are inhuman or the setting isn't Earth.

It's what you know, stretched further, deeper, broader, applied to the whole range of human experience. It's about knowing which bits of what you've experienced are part of the human condition, which bits resonate; it's about making sure your work rings true.

With this definition of honesty, what do you think? Do we need it?

The Joy of Editing

So, I discovered today why I like editing so much more than first drafts. I mean, I knew basically why I did, but today I added layers to that understanding :)

How did I make this discovery? I'm glad you asked :)

Liana has a great post up at the moment about types of first draft writers. She's beta reading a couple of novels right now, and they all have unique styles, and therefore unique flaws. I'm not specifically any of the novels she's talking about, but I am a Sparse Draft writer. Most definitely. My finished novels clock in at about 67k, which is way too short.

The funny thing is, as I'm writing I'm always paranoid that I'm being too wordy. When I did a few creative writing classes at university, my professor was always on at me for overwriting, and of course the speculative fiction genre seems to be uniquely plagued with info-dumps, and so it's been drummed into my head that less is more. So when I'm drafting, I'm almost deliberately being sparse.

Of course, I HATE first drafts, and being sparse could just be a good method of getting through them quickly...

But on to edits.

Because I'm a sparse draft writer, it means my edits are a lot more creative than they would be for, say, a too-much-fluff drafter where edits primarily consist of cutting things out, or for a enough-but-the-wrong-stuff writer, where edits consist of slashing things you like, even if you do get to creatively add stuff back in.

But for a sparse drafter, the edits are all creative. I'm adding stuff in, I'm layering - and in effect, I'm playing. With my world, with my characters, with my story... Editing is pure play, for me.

I hate drafting. It's rough, it's messy, it's illogical and full of holes and totally imperfect. It's creating the skeleton, which in the end looks ugly and mishappen and just barely functional.

I love editing. It's creative, it's fun, it's logical and works to fill in holes and create perfection. It's fleshing out the beast, giving it beauty and personality and life.

Editing? Yes. I love it.

So - what sort of drafter are you, and how does that affect which part of the process you prefer? Who of you prefers drafting to edits, and why? Honestly. I want to understand how someone can prefer drafting. And those of you who like edits - why? Similar reasons to mine, or totally different? Opinions, please!

In English, or Not In English?

No, I'm not talking about speaking other languages. Actually, today, I'm talking about subject English - that thing you learn at school.

First, though, I totally cheated; there is now a Monday post just below dissecting Anette's sentence. I blame my lack of home internet right now %-) But don't forget to go read it.

This year I've started what's affectionately known as a Grad Dip, meaning I'm studying teaching, and English is one of my subject areas. We had a suprisingly interesting discussion in class yesterday, and since the majority of my readers are writers, and thus can be expected to Have Opinions on Englishy type things, I was curious to see what you think :)

Bascially, the question is thus:

What is subject English?

Put another way, what should we be teaching in English in high schools (years 7+)? Grammar? Spelling? (Currently these are mostly done in primary school, which is Kindy - grade 6). Essay writing? Analysing novels? Analysing poems?

Yeah, okay, they're pretty standard things. But what about analysing films? What about learning critical thinking skills in relation to other types of texts and media? Internet-savvy-ness? Does that come into the scope of 'English'? What about analysis of advertising, or learning to use technology to get across a point? Do we study only 'literature'? What is 'literature'? Who gets to decide? Is that right or fair? Should we study pop culture novels, films and texts? Why, or why not?

Really, what is the point of subject English?

Speak to me, dear readers, and tell me your opinions.

And then go read ;)

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs

Leave a comment here to vote for which mistake you'd like me to read out for next Friday's 'podcast'!

People In Fur Coats

1) Emotion
2) Sweetness and Light
3) Intelligence
4) Causation

Personalities

5) Age, Growth and Maturity
6) Gender
7) Imprinting and Instinct
8) The Breeds

The Senses

9) Sight
10) Sound
11) Smell
12) Taste
13) Touch

Communication

14) The Human Language
15) Dog to Human
16) Dog to Dog
17) Human to Dog

Training

18) Terminology
19) Causation Revisited
20) Ways of Learning - and Teaching
21) Bad Habits
22) Memory and Rewards

Breeding

23) Neutering
24) Pregnancy, Labor and Puppies
25) Mongrels

Showing

26) It's All About The Dog
27) The Glamour Factor
28) Natural Beauty

Miscellaneous

29) Injuries to People
30) Canine versus Feline
31) Domesticated Wolves
32) Dog Jobs
33) Fantasy Dogs