Author Archives: Poseidon's Scribe

The Swooper/Basher Dichotomy

While reading Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Timequake recently, I noted he classified writers into two groups: Swoopers and Bashers. He said women tend to be swoopers and men tend to be bashers, adding, “Someone should look into this.” Let’s look into it.

Most writers are familiar with another grouping: plotters and pantzers, but that’s not what Vonnegut was driving at. He wasn’t distinguishing between those who outline and those who don’t. His alternatives focused on the speed of writing a first draft and the number of subsequent drafts.

Swooper

He said swoopers “…write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work.”

Basher

By contrast, bashers “…go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done, they’re done.”

Several bloggers have interesting things to say about the swooper/basher contrast, including Shannon Alberta, Philip Martin, Edmund Schubert, Paula Marais, and David Duhr.

Vonnegut himself claimed to be a basher. Why he chose the terms ‘swooper’ and ‘basher’ is a mystery to me. I can see how writing first drafts quickly might suggest swooping, but writing each sentence carefully doesn’t bring the verb bashing to my mind.

Note that neither method relieves you of the need for meticulous, word-by-word editing. It’s just that bashers do that up front, in the first draft, while swoopers edit in later drafts.

In any case, I doubt there is any gender distinction between the two. I suspect the real dividing point has to do with experience. My guess is that beginning writers tend to be swoopers and many of them become bashers later on.

Early on, a writer has no reputation to lose, and thus feels great freedom to experiment and play with words. Such a writer might have a tenuous grasp of the vision for the story, and therefore must write the first draft at breakneck speed to capture that idea in words before it flies away.

Later in life, after having many stories published and developing a readership, that same writer must be more careful. Readers have come to expect a certain style from the author and deviations aren’t appreciated. There is no longer a need to experiment and play to find out what will work in the marketplace. Moreover, such an author has learned, through experience, how to keep the entire story in mind while crafting each sentence in order.

My theory that beginners tend to be swoopers and veterans to be bashers is, itself, an over-generalization. In the end, it’s a matter of style, of finding what works for you. Among famous authors, I suspect you’ll find both swoopers and bashers. You’re free to experiment with both methods to discover which is better for you.

If you somehow separated swoopers from bashers, and then examined your collection of swoopers carefully, somewhere in that group you’d find—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 4, 2020Permalink

Can a Tomato Help You Write?

What’s keeping you from writing better? Do you have so much to do that you feel overwhelmed? Do you start to write but get distracted? Is it self-discipline you need, or are you simply unable to focus?

If so, perhaps a tomato can help.

No, I don’t mean the fruit itself. I’m talking about the Italian word for tomato—pomodoro. More specifically, I mean the Pomodoro Technique.

Created by Francesco Cirillo, it’s one of the simplest time management methods I’ve ever heard of. You will need nothing more than a kitchen timer, or any timer will do. His kitchen timer was shaped like a tomato, hence the name of the technique.

Pomodoro Kitchen Timer

Here’s how it works:

  1. Set the timer for 25 minutes.
  2. Work on your writing task without interruption, without allowing distractions.
  3. When the timer rings, stop and take a 5-minute break.
  4. Repeat steps 1-3, but after the 4th session, take a longer break—say 20 or 30 minutes.

Those are the basics. Each 25-minute work session is called a ‘pomodoro.’ Writing most works of fiction will take you many pomodoros, but the 5-minute breaks will allow you to stretch and clear your mind. You’ll return to your writing feeling refreshed, and possibly with new insights from your muse.

It’s possible that you’ll finish a single writing task, like a chapter or a short story, while in the middle of a pomodoro session. Mr. Cirillo suggests you use the remainder of the session to review your work, not start your break early. The idea is to ingrain a mental association between work and consistent chunks of time.  

You may find it preferable to use a mechanical timer rather than a digital one. At first, you’ll connect its ticking sound with the relentless passing of time. Later, you’ll associate that sound with your own mental focus. It may actually aid in your ability to concentrate.

Here’s how I’ve used the Pomodoro Technique. Often I have several different writing tasks to do—a first draft of a short story, a second edit of a novel’s chapter, some research for a future work, and an upcoming blog post. Viewed from beforehand, with all these tasks undone, the pile of work can seem daunting.

I’ve found tasks don’t get done if I sit and fret about them. But if I view them as manageable chunks of time, then I can devote pomodoros to each task in turn. If they are unequal in importance, then I start with the most important one and devote more pomodoros to it.

You can use the Pomodoro Technique for many types of tasks, not just writing-related ones. It works for tasks where you can control the timing of your breaks, and where stopping after 25 minutes is possible.

Don’t use it while playing soccer, performing surgery, or defusing a bomb.

But if writing is your thing, consider letting a tomato help you out. It works for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 20, 2020Permalink

The Desk Generation

With schools now conducting ‘remote learning,’ many parents are setting up designated study areas for their children at home. It’s a thing.

Before COVID-19, children did their homework after school, squeezing time for it around sports practice, dinner, and other activities. They studied on a couch, on their bed, at the dinner table after the meal, wherever they could.

(Hold on, wait a minute. At this point you’re wondering why I’m writing about this topic. Isn’t this blog mostly about writing fiction? Yes, and this post is about that, too. Be patient. I’ll get to it.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. As a perceptive viewer of social trends, I’ve picked up on a change. With schoolchildren now home during school hours, linked to their teachers by computer, they need their own assigned study nook at home. In short, they need their own desk.

When I was a kid, I had my own desk. It stood in the basement, separate from the rest of the house, in a quiet area. I didn’t think much about it then, but that desk shaped my life.

There’s enormous symbolic power in a desk. First, it’s yours. It’s a horizontal surface on which you move things about, allowing you to concentrate on the task at hand while other tasks wait. You’re the general, strategically deploying your forces by your command.

Also, it’s got formality of purpose. That is, it claims to the world that this place, and no other, is where you study. That’s all you do there, and you don’t study elsewhere. It’s not some dual-use, multi-function furniture item. When you’re not studying there, you won’t be eating dinner off your desk or sleeping on it. It’s designed and optimized for one activity—studying.

Studying, of course, begins to look a lot like work. We even call it homework or schoolwork.

Even preschoolers can have desks

All the while, the desk is shaping you. You’re forming and ingraining a habit, making a mental link between a place and an activity. The desk is telling you studying is serious. Things you do at a desk are solemn, adult-like things. A desk is a place of the mind, a place to work, a place to create.

A desk is not just a tiny niche within the universe. It is its own universe. Yours.

I think the current push to provide children their own study desk could be a positive trend. And not just to help them do better in schoolwork.

The more people who become used to working creatively at their desk, the more inclined some will be to write fiction. The Desk Generation may end up providing humanity with some of history’s best novelists.  

Sit down, children. Your desk awaits you. Your future lies ahead. Write well, even better than—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 13, 2020Permalink

The Story Behind the Story—Broken Flute Cave

The CHILLFILTR Review just published my short story, “Broken Flute Cave,” and it’s available to read online here. This historical fantasy tale is well outside my normal line, and here is the story behind that story—

Some years ago, a friend of my father shared her interest in Native American flutes with him. Being curious about everything, he became interested himself, particularly with the Anasazi Flute, more aptly named the Ancestral Pueblo Flute. These differ from most other Native American flutes in that they have no ‘fipple’ mouthpiece. An archaeologist named Earl Morris discovered these flutes in 1931, lying in a cave within Prayer Rock Valley in Arizona.

Here is where stories get warped from retelling, often becoming more dramatic and less mundane than the truth. The way I understood the story was that Morris, familiar with standard Native American flutes, saw no fipple on these and concluded they must be missing their mouthpiece, so named the cavern “Broken Flute Cave.”

Later, (again, this may be apocryphal) someone realized the flutes must be intact, but they seemed impossible to play. Decades after their discovery, someone hit on the right way to play the flutes—the proper angle to hold them, the proper way to shape your lips—and the resulting sound seemed haunting and magical.

As a storyteller and a person intrigued by rediscovering lost technologies, I liked this account. I thought about the idea of a musician from a now-forgotten tribe, unable to pass on the techniques of making and playing these flutes, dying in that cave. Only after hundreds of years would they be found, and more decades would pass before their sound would be heard again.

Those thoughts percolated in my mind for years before I wrote “Broken Flute Cave.” My protagonist, Hototo, bears a name meaning ‘warrior spirit who sings.’ For a while, archaeologists called his tribe the Anasazi, but he wouldn’t have called himself that. Anasazi means ‘enemy,’ so that’s the name by which other tribes called them. The flute-making tribe vanished, leaving only their pueblos, flutes, and other artifacts behind.

In writing the story, I sought to link Hototo’s time to ours, and to portray the loss of names, techniques, skills, and civilizations through the failure to properly pass them on. Some may get rediscovered, many will not. Although these losses to time are sad, perhaps we can all learn from Hototo to look on the bright side.

In fact, it’s likely that the archaeologist Morris knew the flutes were intact, but named the cavern Broken Flute Cave because some of the instruments were truly broken. Further, it appears he figured out how to play them right away. However, it did take several decades for Anasazi Flutes to catch on in popularity.

As an interesting sidelight, my dad noticed a similarity between the flutes and common PVC pipe, so he bought some pipe and made his own. That intrigued me, so I made some, too. Pictured is a replica flute, and my four PVC flutes.

On the rare occasions when spirits smile on me, I can get decent sounds from my homemade flutes, but I’d need a lot of practice to produce enjoyable music. There are several good audio clips on YouTube featuring musicians playing ‘Anasazi flutes’ well, and I think you’d like the pure, rich tone they make.

If you’re wondering what such a flute would sound like in a cave, you can read “Broken Flute Cave,” but don’t listen to any PVC pipes played by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 6, 2020Permalink

Having Tea with Jules Verne

When I found out about an online book review of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, I had to sign up. On Thursday, August 27, the St. James Literary League conducted one of their quarterly meetings online using Zoom, and just happened to select my favorite novel.

The St. James Literary League is associated with the St. James Tearoom in Albuquerque. I suspect that, pre-COVID, they held their meetings in that elegant restaurant. For this meeting, luckily, I could join in from home without traveling to New Mexico.  

Janisse Rakes hosted the event, for which there were about ten attendees. I say ‘about’ because some people came and went. Janisse started by asking people to introduce themselves and give their overall impressions of the book.

Most attendees had completed reading the novel, several for the first time. Verne’s 19th Century style of writing, combined with his interminable lists of fish, made it a difficult slog for several reviewers. Some wondered about the accuracy of Verne’s information, suspecting he must have made up many of those facts. (No, he didn’t, but the science of Marine Biology has moved on, so I wouldn’t use that novel as an ichthyology reference.)

On the positive side, they liked the steampunk nature of the book, Verne’s ahead-of-his-time predictions, and the dramatic tension between the characters.

Janisse had prepared well, and kept the discussion lively by posing questions for the group to ponder. She asked about the novel’s characters, the technology, the character names, the title of the book itself, whether Aronnax should be considered a reliable narrator, the theme of freedom in the novel, how characters changed throughout the story, and the meaning of the book’s final lines.

For me, having first read the novel a half century ago, and having re-read it several times since, I’d forgotten—and can never quite recapture—the thrill of reading it for the first time. By listening to the reviewers that night, I got a glimpse of the wonder and amazement of a first-time reader. In a sense, through their eyes, I got to read the book for the first time…again! I enjoyed that.

In my opinion, the event was a great success. I thank the St. James Tearoom, the St. James Literary League, all the attendees, and Janisse Rakes in particular for a wonderful time.

For some new stories written by modern authors, but inspired by Jules Verne’s novel, I recommend 20,000 Leagues Remembered, co-edited by Kelly A. Harmon and also…well—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 30, 2020Permalink

Win a Prize by Reviewing Books!

Talk about burying the lead. I announced a huge, new prize-winning opportunity for you, but I put it at the end of my last blogpost on August 9th. What was I thinking?

Here’s how the Pole to Pole Publishing Book Review Event works:

  1. Read 20,000 Leagues Remembered and other Pole to Pole Publishing anthologies.
  2. Write reviews of the anthologies you read.
  3. Post the reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, your blog, and any other public online forum.
  4. Email links to your reviews to Pole to Pole Publishing at submissions[at]poletopolepublishing.com.
  5. Each posted review earns 1 point, but reviews of 20,000 Leagues Remembered earn 2 points each.
  6. The person earning the most points will win three (3) books of the winner’s choice from Pole to Pole Publishing, in either ebook or paperback format. The winner may choose any Pole to Pole Publishing books as prizes, not just the anthologies.

Fine print: to count toward the prize, reviews must be posted between June 20 and September 30, 2020. You must email Pole to Pole Publishing with your review links on or before October 3, 2020. Editors of 20,000 Leagues Remembered reserve the right to judge what constitutes a legitimate review (write a few sentences, please; a ‘stars-only’ review doesn’t count). Authors of stories appearing in P2P anthologies are eligible to participate. Anthologies to review are: Hides the Dark Tower, In a Cat’s Eye, Dark Luminous Wings, Not Far From Roswell, Re-Launch, Re-Quest, Re-Terrify, Re-Enchant, Re-Haunt, and 20,000 Leagues Remembered. Winners will be contacted via email.

Why are you still reading this blogpost? You have book reviews to do! You already know how this post ends, just like all posts by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 20, 2020Permalink

8 Editing Facts Every Writer Should Know

Until recently, I had been a writer like you, churning out stories and submitting them before Oz, the Great and Powerful…er, I mean editors.

I just co-edited a book myself for the first time and I learned a few things. Today, I’ll pull back the curtain and show you what I found out. Some editors might tell you to pay no attention to the mere mortal behind that curtain, but not me. Perhaps the following nuggets of wisdom will help you as you write and submit stories.

  1. Get away from your gender planet. I’ll try to put this delicately. In 2020, I assumed women weren’t from Venus anymore and men weren’t from Mars. That is, I assumed female writers had gotten beyond long descriptions of characters’ apparel and deep explorations of relationships with no real plotline. Likewise, male writers were well past stories filled with violence and action, peopled with stereotype characters who speak in monosyllables. I thought we’d transcended all that. Nope. Without looking at a writer’s name, I could generally tell the gender in the first couple of paragraphs. My advice—bend your writing toward the other gender’s planet.
  • Don’t expect your poorly written good idea to sell. Occasionally, we’d get a story with a wonderful premise, engaging plotline, and compelling characters, and we’d really want to accept it. Unfortunately, the work suffered from grammar mistakes, plot holes, anachronisms, and other problems. As editors, we’d have to weigh the time required for thorough editing, as well as the back-and-forth communication with the writer, against the idea of accepting a different story that was almost as good but had far fewer mistakes. Self-edit your story with care before submission.
  • Don’t throw junk at the wall. If the submission guidelines state the editors are looking for stories inspired by Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, send a story like that. We received more than one story way, way outside those bounds. As a new editor, I read every submission all the way through. For some, I kept hoping as I read that there’d be some connection, some reference, some link to Verne or submarines, but no. What a waste of the writer’s time, not to mention mine.
  • Learn to write a cover letter. Luckily, there’s not much to learn. If the submission guidelines tell you what the editor wants in your cover letter, follow those. If not, here are my guidelines: (a) No spelling or grammar mistakes. If you can’t get the cover letter right, the editor will have little hope for your story. (b) Just include relevant facts about yourself, things that connect to your story. If you’re sending fiction, don’t list your non-fiction and poetry credits. If you have no relevant credentials yet, don’t stretch what you have to fit. (c) Shorter is better, by far. If your cover letter bores an editor, there’s little hope for your story. If you can get away with no cover letter at all, do that. If all you say is “Please consider my story, ‘<title>’ for your anthology,” that’s fine too.
  • Follow submission guidelines. Sure, it stinks that every editor has her own filename structure, font rules, quote mark guidance, page formatting, etc. Yes, it would be easier if they all agreed on the same submission process. We don’t live in that world yet. Just read and follow each editor’s rules. Better that than to give the editor a good reason to reject your story.
  • Understand that rejections aren’t only hard on the writer. Boy, I hated having my stories rejected, until I learned to get over it and keep submitting. But it’s actually worse from the editorial side. Several stories were on the borderline, really close to getting accepted for our anthology. It broke my heart to reject them. Not much advice here, but just realize that you’ll never know how difficult it was for an editor to reject your submission. Even if they tell you, it won’t help much. Just pick yourself up and submit that story elsewhere.
  • Aim for a smooth author-editor relationship. After acceptance, be positive and professional in all your communication with the editor. If an editor recommends changes to your story, consider them dispassionately before exploding. You can push back against changes where you disagree, but explain your reasoning when you do. In the mission of making your story the best it can be, you and the editor are on the same team.
  • Help with marketing. If your story is accepted by a small press, understand that they won’t have a marketing team. They’ll appreciate any advertising help you can provide, including promoting the anthology on social media, interviewing the other authors on your blog or having them guest-post, and posting a review of the anthology.  

Now that I’ve given you a peek behind the curtain, you’ve got the brains, heart, and courage to find a good home for your story. All granted by that great and powerful wizard—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 16, 2020Permalink

What a Party!

Three days after the party and I’m still recovering. No, not really. It was a Facebook party to celebrate the launch of the anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered. No music, no dancing, relatively few drinks.

We held it last Thursday night, the first Facebook party I ever attended, and I was one of the two hosts. We had 32 attendees, including both co-editors (Kelly A. Harmon and me), and 7 of our 16 authors.

Much credit goes to those authors, who kept things interesting by posting fun facts about themselves and their stories. I heard feedback from one attendee who said the author bios were the best part of the party.

We gave away prizes, some randomly based on numbers of comments and shares, and some based on correctly answering trivia questions. Prize winners got to choose from among Pole to Pole Publishing’s collection of anthologies.

Prior to the party, I’d been thinking about the wide variety of settings for the anthology’s stories, and made a map of all of them. I posted the map during the party and people seemed to like it. One party-goer said all anthologies should make similar maps!

One of my daughters is particularly talented with 3D printing and has printed models from my various stories before, pictured here, here, here, here, and here. Recently, she made a near-replica of the submarine pictured on our anthology’s cover. I’m to blame for the poor paint job, but still. Kinda cool.

If you missed the party, you can still enjoy the retrospective here.

Grand Prize Still Up for Grabs!

Also, a grand prize is still available! Here’s how you can earn it, simply by posting book reviews during the month of August 2020. Post your reviews of 20,000 Leagues Remembered and any other anthology from the Pole to Pole Publishing archives on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, your blog, and any other online public forum. Email Pole to Pole Publishing at submissions(‘at’ symbol)poletopolepublishing.com with the URLs of your reviews. Each posted review at each public site earns you 1 point, but reviews of 20,000 Leagues Remembered earn 2 points each. (The co-editors of that anthology reserve the right to judge what constitutes a legitimate review.)

If you post the most reviews during the month of August, you’ll win…wait for it…3 (yes, three) books of your choice from Pole to Pole Publishing, in either ebook or paperback format.

I’d like to win that prize myself, but, <heavy sigh> one of the few people in the world who isn’t eligible for it is—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 9, 2020Permalink

10 Traits Writers Need Most

What traits do you need to become a successful fiction writer? Of those, which are most important?

Author Anne R. Allen wrote a blogpost some years ago that inspired this line of thinking for me. She had encountered people who thought talent was necessary, and sufficient. They’d send her their written excerpts and ask, “Do you think I’ve got the talent?”

Anne Allen argued, persuasively, that natural talent might aim you in your life’s direction, but is far less important than skill, or several other traits she cited.

I decided to carry the argument in a different direction. Given the traits she mentioned, could I come up with an ordered list from most important to least important?

Using a technique called pair-wise comparison, I used a matrix to compare each trait against each of the others and added up the scores.

First, let’s define each one in alphabetical order:

  • Creativity, or Imagination. This wasn’t on Anne R. Allen’s list, but I consider it important. Basically, it’s the ability to come up with new ideas, to invent characters, plots, scene descriptions, etc.
  • Drive. This is the inner motivation or impulse to write. It’s that determination, that self-discipline, that pushes you to create fictional worlds.
Gratitude symbol
  • Gratitude. By this, Anne meant the willingness to accept help in the form of negative criticism, particularly comments on your manuscript from beta readers and editors. I would have called it Toughness, or Thick Skin, but we’ll keep with Anne’s term.
  • Learning. This is the willingness to acquire new writing skills by educating yourself. There are numerous methods, including studying the classics, taking classes, participating in critique groups, and reading books about writing. Choose the method that works for you.
  • Marketing. This trait measures how well you understand what your readership wants and how well you expose potential readers to your writing. These days, you have to know the market and be willing to advertise yourself.
  • Observation. Anne called this trait “Listening Skills,” but I sought a one-word description. Writers must watch and listen to people, how they behave, what they say, what facial expressions and gestures they use, what verbal expressions and dialect they employ, etc. Such knowledge will make your characters seem more realistic.
  • Passion. This describes your love of writing. Although related to Drive, this is more about the pleasure you derive from the act of writing itself.
Tabono Symbol
  • Persistence. It’s a measure of your willingness and ability to overcome setbacks, to solve problems and move forward, to rise after falling.
  • Skill. This trait describes the quality of your writing. Anne had much to say about skill, but didn’t include it specifically in her list of traits. She defined ‘talent’ as inborn skill, but believed few people had talent, but most could develop skill. Her post suggested that ‘skill’ was an umbrella term that included all the other traits. I believe skill is independent of all of them, and merely addresses how well you write.
  • Solitude. Anne called this ‘The Ability to be Alone’ and made it clear that writing is not just for introverts. It’s just that extroverts must leave their comfort zone for a while, since writing is an individual effort.

Obviously, there are inter-relationships and overlaps among these traits. Still, they’re distinct enough that I was able to rate each one in importance against all the others. Below is my subjective list from most important to least:

  1. Creativity
  2. Drive
  3. Passion
  4. Observation
  5. Learning
  6. Skill
  7. Persistence
  8. Gratitude
  9. Marketing
  10. Solitude

As a general pattern, you can see my most important ones are traits that get you started, and the least important (with the exception of Solitude) are traits you develop as a result of having written and submitted your work.

That list may not seem right to you, but it works for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 2, 2020Permalink

It’s a Party, and You’re Invited!

Just as Jules Verne’s Nautilus traveled all over the world, we’re throwing a world-wide party. It’s on Thursday August 6th, from 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EDT and it’s on Facebook.

We’re doing this to celebrate the launch of the new anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered. Published on the 150th anniversary of Jules Verne’s masterwork, this book contains new stories by 16 modern authors, all paying tribute to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, that classic proto-steampunk novel of undersea adventure.

At the party, you can meet the editors and the authors of the stories and ask all the questions you want. Best of all, you can win prizes!

You’re invited! Everyone is. Now, of course, you’re wondering how to attend. Just follow these steps:

  1. Create a Facebook account if you don’t already have one.
  2. Send a friend request to me.
  3. If you don’t receive a party invitation within a day or two, send me a message to prompt me.
  4. Once you get the invitation, accept it.
  5. Share info about the party with your friends.
  6. Log into Facebook at the right date and time and join the fun.

(If anyone knows a simpler way to invite the whole world to a Facebook event, let me know in the comments to this blogpost.)

You’ve waited 150 years for this sesquicentennial celebration. It would be a shame to miss it. After all, the bicentennial won’t be until June 2070, and that’s a long time from now.

See you at the party! You’ve been cordially invited by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 26, 2020Permalink