What I Did on My Six-Month Vacation

Six months ago, I took leave of Urbanagora in order to work on my first book, Riding the Hell-bound Train. I am happy to report that, as of this morning, it is done. I am going to do one last out-loud read-through to entertain the cats and catch those nuances of language not found any other way (learned that the hard way when I stopped in the middle of a public reading and said out loud, “Man, that last sentence didn’t make a lick o’ sense”). After that, all 94,000 words will go to my editor at Peregrination Press, I look over the uncorrected galleys line-by-line, and the book should be available for purchase after July 15th.

Just as I finished, Augur sent me a PM saying that “if I didn’t start writing for the blog again, I won’t have any audience to sell my book to.” This will never do. Therefore, I want to let you know that I am back and will remain so in parallel with my new career in fantasy fiction. Since the book’s been the main subject of my life for the last six months, I will describe in this first article what I learned while writing it. Other writers have been really kind and helpful to me, perhaps I can return the favor for somone in our audience.

The first thing I didn’t expect was how many people a writer needs. I’ve been lucky that my wives, Marcey, kitten, and Cheron, helped me both as first readers for my shitty first drafts and as the last people who looked over the rewrites for the continuity errors that cropped up. This, at times, put a heavy strain on my marriage–there is a good reason writers drink, spouses of writers drink, and there’s an ungodly divorce rate. I am insufferable when I’m working–demanding, insecure, pompous, and driven. I want to go on record saying that not only could I not have written the book without them, I am amazed they’re still letting me into their bedrooms.

It doesn’t stop there. Sean-Thomas Gunnell’s my cover artist and we’ve been throwing art back and forth to each other, me bitching about how long it’s taking and he trying to give me what I want, no matter how difficult. The covers are very close to done, if someone can show me what to embed .jpgs in, I’ll add them to this article. It’s been a learning experience.

The wonderful Allie Mazan has been working as my web-mistress and publicist for no money at all so far. I’m going to try to find some way for a starving artist to make it up to her–the website design alone is worth a hell of a lot. She’s been a constant source of inspiration and another first reader as well as my personal version of Pepper Potts.

My editor, John Barnstead, is going to be involved in the next step of the process. He encouraged me all along and without him, the book would never have been written in the first place.

So, What Did I Learn?

Writing is honest work, but not like any I have experienced before. The extreme-endorphin thrill of inspiration when the words flow from your brain to paper in an attempt to achieve telepathy is far, far better than the best sex I’ve ever had. In contrast, rewriting is the ninth-circle of hell, comparable to removing layers of skin with a cheese grater. No one should ever try to write because they want to get rich–writing is done because you have no choice. I started as an adequate writer. After six months of blood, sweat, tears, and dead trees stretching from here to Oregon, I think I am on the way to being a damn good one.

I read two books by authors that helped me a lot. First was Stephen King’s On Writing. He wrote the first half before and the second half following his near-fatal accident. This book is chock-full of the kind of advice first-time writers need. The best part for me came at the end, when he gave an example of the first-draft of one of his stories followed by what it looked like after he had taken the re-write pen to it. I was beginning my rewrite when I read that part and said to myself, “Oh, my God, he’s got as much ink on that manuscript as I do. I don’t suck that bad, really.” The other book was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Not only are there tons of practical hints within it on how to develop your art, she is so batshit nuts you realize you’re really not that crazy, after all–it’s wonderful. It has not escaped my notice that both of them used to be heavy-duty alcoholics and demonstrate that you don’t have to drink to do good work.

Above my desk I have a list of rules for writing that I’ve added to as I went along. I am sure that they’re not finished, but they got me this far, so I’ll share them.

Don’t Suck!

Phil and Kaja Foglio gave a talk at the Association for Computing Machinery conference about how they turned their money-losing comic into a cash cow by giving it away for free on the ‘Net. They told me that right now is the best, the easiest time to get work out to the public and that one can be a success even without the traditional filters of the big commercial publishing houses if you followed the above rule.

The Road to Hell Is Paved with Adverbs

Stephen King is right–adverbs weaken verbs and should be avoided, especially in cases where you’re doing dialog. The biggest exception is in cases where there is a discrepancy between what the dialog says and what the speaker means. In my rewrites, every adverb is examined and I end up keeping less than one in ten.

Don’t Tell, Show

It took a while to catch on to this. One sentence of action is worth a paragraph of description. This connects to the next one,

Never Use the Passive Voice Unless Necessary

There’s a reason that our eyes are in front–we’re built for action and speed. No one is interested in how “the tree was framed by the picket fence.” We’re wired, instead, to notice that “the picket fence frames the tree.”

Cut 10%

Anne Lamott says everyone has shitty first-drafts. She’s right about me, I don’t know about anyone else. The first draft is to get the stuff out of your head. It’s going to be bloated and full and in order for anyone to want to come close to it, it’s going to have to be pared–pared with a machete. At first, cutting back your prose is like killing your children. Later on, when your writing gets better, it gets much worse.

Use “Said”

Never Start a Sentence with “Suddenly” or use “All Hell Broke Loose”

I learned these from Elmore Leonard. He has forty-four novels of which 70% is dialog and the reader is never, for a moment, in doubt about who is talking. He writes without using synonyms for “said” because the human brain is programmed to ignore the word. If you write this way, it makes dialog like a radio play with the reader filling in nuances better than the writer can.

How to Write a Story–ABDCE

Anne Lamott again, with a structure that can be used for anything from a short-short to a novel trilogy:

Action, at the start, to draw the reader in

Background, so they know why what’s happening is important

Development, to show change

Climax, where something important happens–a death, a birth (or rebirth) or a mystery solved

Ending, where you give the reader a present for bothering with you–something to think about as they walk away.

Finish

None of this is worth a good goddamn if no one ever sees your work. It’s the hardest step, the scariest step, but sooner or later, if you’re going to be a writer, you have to finish the book. The greatest fear when you do, I think, is that you’re never going to be able to do it again. In part, writing this piece today is proof to me that I still can do my job. Take the old manuscript out of your drawer and start working on it again. It might not be as bad as you think.

We’re All Terminal

There’s a good reason for us to do the best job every day that we possibly can–someday will be the last day of our life. If you write as if you wanted the piece before you to be the last, greatest example of your work, it’s going to be worth the time and the trouble. There’s good reason to follow this philosophy–sooner or later, you’re going to be right.

It’s good to be back at Urbanagora and I’m looking forward to our upcoming change in format, so I will no longer have to worry about post length. Thanks a lot for your patience, your loyalty, and your friendship. Buy my book–I think you’ll like it.

Tom Trumpinski