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I missed Monday. No, really -- I missed Monday. I slept through a good part of it, and it wasn't until a few minutes ago that I realized it's Tuesday and I needed to get the trash out. Ah, the life without ties -- it's so easy to lose track of days!
Okay, so I was never very calendar-conscious at the best of times. Still, it's a good excuse.
I have turned Silky over to the publisher. Today I wrote a very short blurb for it and sent that on as well. It should have been done on Monday but... well, you know. I have finished the major pass through Silky 2, but I saw some points where I need to expand, explain, and improve again. I'm letting it sit for a few days. Then I'll be back to work on it and we'll see how it goes!
Right now I'm working on major notes and worldbuilding for Draw the Line, an sf novel I hope to write later this year. Much of it is falling together well, and I think it's going to be an intricate, interesting world when I finally lay it all out. I spent a good amount of today sorting out notes and getting some more of them typed into SuperNotecard. The program works great for me.
Creating a complex world takes time and effort, and attention to details. I know that sounds obvious, but sometimes people really don't think about it. They get the wouldn't this be neat idea and run with it for a while -- without really contemplating the full implications of what the idea means to the rest of the world around the character and you sit there thinking but, but -- if he did that then THIS should hold true for everything else! Luckily, this is usually caught in professionally published books -- but not always. There have been some really interesting 'work arounds' for big problems.
I see the problem quite often the kind of first draft stuff, mine included. I'll read along and suddenly realize that if (for instance) the nobility are limited in the number of children they can have, then the fact that this child was born to a slave is a really big deal and it's time to rethink that part as something more than giving one of the characters an interesting background. It has ramifications in other areas, including who is heir to his father's estate.
And if an heir is disinherited, the noble has to find someone else to take that place, especially since such an occasion would probably come late in life when the heir proves to be incapable of doing the work needed. Since, in this world, magic is an essential part of the nobility, and since magic is virtually unknown out side the noble lines, that means the person would have to adopt from one of the other noble families. But if they are limited in the number of children as well, are they going to want to give up one of their own? Would you adopt a current lord's sister's child? A child farther out along the line -- the uncle of the current lord had two children, and one of them has two children, so you adopt one of them?
And this does not take into account politics, which is a big dividing line in the book.
But that's a relatively simple problem to deal with, of course. Something obvious. It doesn't even take much thought. However, lately I've been seeing even this kind of simple stuff slipping by some of the stories I'm reading online. I sometimes wish people would take a little more time, rather than just jot something off and shove it up somewhere. A little more time people -- really, take your time and write something and go over it, and get it right. It doesn't matter how you are publishing it -- don't be in such a hurry. You'll only hurt your reputation as a good storyteller if you get in too big a hurry. If you want readers, give them the best you can create, not the fastest.
And sometimes that means doing some background work and finding the problems before you are halfway through a novel and then, rather than going back and reworking things, creating a 'work around' that makes the story weaker. This doesn't mean that any of us are ever going to catch everything, but it does mean you are more likely to catch some of the problems before you're asked by a reader 'If Sally goes crazy at the sight of yellow, then how can she drive down the road or have eggs for breakfast without going into berserk mode?'
So there's my lecture. (Laughs)
And now, back to notes on Draw the Line.