Novel Experience

I wrote a book for National Novel Writing Month, which I'm having read by people just now. That's not new: I pretty much always write a book in November, and most of them are complete, and read, and in many cases ready to go for publishing, if not already published.

All well and good, but that seems to be a bad habit to have gotten in to. I seem to be fixated on the notion of writing books in November: while I can do short stories, and editing, and that sort of thing, I have had very limited success in writing novels at other times of the year in a very long while. But I'm feeling a little confident right now. I'm about half way through another novel that I started eighteen days ago, 34000 words almost, and I think that I'm liking it, and that it's a pretty decent thing as well. With luck, with good effort, and with positive feedback I might finish the thing, which would delightful.

Another new thing, this one completely new, is that I'm having people read the book as I write it. I don't do this. I don't ever do this. Every time I've ever done this, it's resulted in me not finishing the book. I don't know why. Possibly it's because I like to talk, and like to talk about what I'm writing, and don't like to know how things I'm writing will end up. That's a bad combination, because I'll talk, and then talk about the book, and then tell people how I think it will go. And then I will stop writing. This time, though, I'm managing to let people read it, and even field a few questions, offer a few hints, and not completely lose the interest in work.

It's a new feeling for me. I needed to get used to doing it, though, as I'm about to start editing my novel for my publisher, and when that happens, I'm going to need to not lose interest in the work because someone's reading it. So this is good practice.

It's also kind of scary. The book, I mean, not the process. Though there's some of that, too.

National Novel Writing Month

There's this thing called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for shorter, which I do. Or have done. Or something. I think the first time I did it was in 2004, though I may be wrong, it might have been 2003. All records of the period have grown sketchy, and the computers I wrote on then, which might have contained such information, are corrupted and long dead. In any case, from that point I've given it at least a shot every year: try to write a novel of at least 50000 words in one month (November).

There's been a good amount of success. Two years ago I wrote Engines of the Broken World; a couple edits later, it got bought by a publisher, and looks likely to make its way to shelves in time for NaNo 2012 (or maybe 2013, the timing on publishing being not an exact science). 2006 was Daughter of Cleopatra, which I've epublished; 2010 was Never, which is probably my favorite of all the things I've written, and is also readily available. Other years brought Speech of Angels, being edited and polished, and the House of the Serpent, ditto (though it needs much more editing and polishing). There was the year I was at sea, and didn't finish anything (sad year for NaNo, but hell, I was sailing around the world, and I was pretty impressed that I even gave it a shot).

This year I'm getting married in November. That takes up, as you  may know and can certainly imagine, a goodly bit of time in the lead up, and then there's a honeymoon after. So it's not going to be the best month for writing a book. But I'm still going to give it a try, and see what comes. I suspect another failed attempt, and I won't much blame myself for it. One must, however, make the attempt. And so should you, dear readers, if the least hint of being a novelist has entered your head.

One month. One book. It's a hard equation to master, but simple in concept.

Successfully Faking It

Steamcon is coming up in a couple of weeks. Both Peter and I will be there doing a talk about ebooks and Steampunk, which I feel perfectly comfortable doing, as it's focusing in large part on ebooks. I know that topic pretty well now. Somehow it grew into me being an actual pro at the convention, though. I don't mind being a pro: you get a nicer badge, and access to the greenroom, and you're in the program if all has gone well. That's all kind of neat. It's been a while since I pro'ed at a con, like more than a decade of a while, but the process seems to be almost unchanging. The real problem comes in the fact that it was needful for me to sign up to do more panels (wait, they expect me to work?) and thus, I need to fake it.

Panels are great: people who know a thing or two talking about that thing for interested audiences. The problem arises when the audience (Steampunk enthusiasts) knows more than the panelists (me, in this case, a Steampunk dabbler, interested in the topic but really not deeply sunk into it.) I tried to pick panels that I at least knew something about, mostly from a historical perspective rather than a genre one, and that's worked out okay. But as so often occurs in ordinary life, I'm now obliged to fake it. Fake knowledge that I halfway possess; fake confidence that I should be up in front of people many of whom are more gifted and talented than me; fake ability to moderate a panel involving just me and this guy. So that's a problem.

On the other hand, I'm a writer. A writer of fiction, no less. My job is to fake it: to make it seem like I grasp what it's like to be in the 18th Century, or a woman, or slowly dying of blood loss. Or even to live in a city other than Seattle, which is about all the experience I have in that particular field. And I think I do pretty well in that regard. This is just the same thing, for an hour, with help, in front of people who will drift in and out of rooms as their level of interest and boredom dictates. Not even necessarily interest and boredom in me and what I'm talking about in a panel, either. I've walked out of perfectly good panels because I thought maybe there was something else going on. So it's easy, I know that. Easy to fake it, easy to put out an impression of knowledge, of competence. And really, I'm not underqualified or anything, I just know there are very expert persons attending who aren't panel participants at all, and never will be, and it makes me feel a bit of a fake all the same.

Doesn't matter though. I'm committed now. So let's get to the fakery. I suppose the night before, I'll have to be a busy bee at writing something different and odd, so that I really feel successful at making it up as I go along. But that's all right. It's what I do. It's what all writers do.

See you at the con. I'll be smiling, real or not. Hopefully by that point, it'll be hard to tell.

Success! Level Up!

Is this the venue for this announcement? Well, why not? I just got an offer for my book Engines of the Broken World, which means very soon it will be bought by a publisher, which means that it will no longer be available. So if you should want to get a chance to read this worthy volume, head on over here and buy yourself a copy pronto.

Also, I get to now spell Author with a capital A. This was a big wad of XP to get all at once, and it totally leveled me.