My Chessiecon 2021 Schedule

You’re invited to join me at a virtual science fiction and fantasy convention this weekend. Give me a second while I find out what they’re charging for admission to this thing…wait…ah, here. No, that can’t be right. It’s free?

I guess so. You can listen all weekend to my inciteful and inspiring ideas for nuttin’. Nada. Zero dollars and zero zero cents. (Well, you’re invited to make a donation.) Here’s the Chessiecon website where you can register to attend.

Anyway, I’ve listed my schedule below, which is subject to change. All times are Eastern time zone.

Date/TimeTitleDescription
Fri 4:30 PMHow to be a panelist / moderator / presenter at SF/F consNew to trying to herd cats? Not only does a moderator need to encourage panelists, stop one panelist from taking over the whole shebang, but also a moderator needs to be able to read the audience.
Fri 9:00 PMUnderwater Cities. Is there merit to this idea?What are the Engineering, Social, and Environmental limitations to expanding the areas of earth’s surface that people can inhabit?
Sat 10:00 AMWhy Read the Classics?Do they still have something to teach us, or are they just not something of interest to a 21st-Century audience?
Sat 2:30 PMWhy Aren’t They Writing Like They Used To?We all know the trope that s/ff has always has at least overtones of politics; but what other things have changed or not changed in the field?
Sat 4:00 PMPandemics Throughout History, and Their Effects on Literature2019-2021 is not the first regional, continental or even global pandemic in history.  How have these events affected literature, be it fantasy, speculative or science-fiction literature?
Sat 8:30 PMWorldbuilding in Your StoryPhysical characteristics, societies, geography, languages, and what else might fit. And how this affects your stories
Sat 10:30 PMWhat Did I Do to Survive the Great Pandemic? How our panelists muddled through, and yet, still somehow are not zombies. Note: may be slightly delayed if the chorus runs over slightly.

I’ll be moderating the Underwater Cities panel, the Classics panel, and the Worldbuilding panel. I’ll be a panelist for the rest.

Here’s that website one more time: www.chessiecon.org.

How many opportunities do you get to listen to me for free? Heck, I don’t even get that deal. I charge myself admission, and I pay up, ‘cause I’m worth it.

But you don’t have to pay a cent to listen to seven sensational sessions this Friday and Saturday when you’ll hear the portentous pontifications of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 25, 2021Permalink

When Critique Groups Go Bad

In previous posts, I’ve promoted joining a critique group as a way to improve your writing. I still stand by that, but critique groups—being made up of humans—aren’t perfect. Sometimes you might have to drop out and join a new one.  

Critique groups consist of writers who review and comment on each other’s work. Always voluntary, and usually free or low cost, they meet either in person or online. Through these interactions, you can learn how to improve your writing, and how to give effective critiques that help your fellow writers. Useful ideas often come from these meetings, and you’ll find yourself hearing the voices of your fellow writers as you work on your manuscripts.

Still, they can go bad. As discussed by Anne R. Allen in this informative post, there are several types of critique group members to watch out for. I’ll summarize her list and put it in my own words, but the ideas are hers.

  1. Perpetually Offended.  These are writers who can’t look beyond their personal belief systems, whether religious, political, racial, sexual, etc. It’s one thing for them to point out a stereotyped character in your story. That’s fair, and valuable. But to tell you that your writing offended them is not helpful. You won’t receive good critiques from such people.
  2. Enforcers of the Old Rules. Some group members might say you can’t end a sentence with a preposition, or hit you with some other outdated rule they learned from a high school English teacher. Or they might be just plain wrong. Either way, ignore these criticisms.
  3. Ignorers of Group Norms. Critique groups need rules, whether written or not, and members should abide by them. How does the group get new members, or kick out a disruptive one? How long can submissions be? How are critiques offered and received? Members that violate the rules detract from the critique experience.
  4. Bad or Missing Group Moderator. Groups can sometimes work better with a leader, but a bad leader can ruin the experience. Anne R. Allen listed this item, but I don’t entirely agree. I’ve been a member of a leaderless critique group for twenty years. It’s small (four people), and we did once discuss having a leader, but we never chose one and haven’t suffered for it.
  5. Grammarians in a Gaggle. You’ll benefit from having at least one grammar expert in the group. But if that becomes the group focus, rather than plot or character or description, then you’re missing most of what critiques should be about.
  6. Control Freaks. Some group members might get grumpy or angry if you don’t take their advice. These folks forget whose name will go on the published story—the author’s, not the critique group members. You are free to take or reject any advice from any group member, and their inability to accept that is their problem.
  7. Pollyannas. One or more members might give you only praise—nothing negative. A good critique should have positive and negative elements. We feel good when others like our work, but if they don’t point out the bad parts, they’re not helping you.
  8. Re-writers. These folks think they have a better idea for your whole story concept, and it sounds like something they’d write. Listen to their advice in case it contains a useful nugget, but otherwise ignore them.
  9. Self-Proclaimed Experts. Some people sound authoritative and spew false assertions with utter confidence. You’ll probably believe them the first time, but after a fact-check proves them wrong, you should doubt their advice after that.
  10.  Initiation Shamans. On occasion a group includes someone who makes things tough on newcomers. Their scorching critiques are enough to make a newbie quit the first day.

Got enough of these types in your critique group? Quit and find (or form) a better one. No need to remain part of a group that’s not helping you.

Also, (need I say it?) you should avoid exhibiting the above behaviors yourself. I’ve probably hit about half of them at some point, so don’t join any group that includes—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 21, 2021Permalink

The 4 Stages of Writing Productivity

If you write, you’d like to write faster. But how? On October 20, I attended a webinar by prolific author Vi Khi Nao, and she said some things that might interest and help you.

Vi Khi Nao

She titled her talk, ‘How to Write Effortlessly and Quickly,’ and I was struck by her four ‘productivity techniques,’ called Inflexible, Exact, Flexible, and Ideal Muse.

When she declared that last one, Ideal Muse, as her favorite, I figured I’d skip to it. Then she said you can’t skip. You must work through each technique in order.

Dang. That makes them more like steps or stages. You must go through them in order, she stated, because you will learn something at each stage that helps you in the next one.

I’ll outline each stage in my own words. What follows is my interpretation of what she said. If I got it wrong, it’s my fault, not hers.

Inflexible

Determined to write more, Vi Khi Nao put aside as much of her non-writing life as possible. She limited her interactions with others, devoting herself to writing. She filled her days with writing, and became ‘inflexibly disciplined’ about it.

Her output grew. She wrote a lot. However, she considered most of the resulting manuscripts bad. Her own prose bored her, and it required heavy editing. In the end, after many drafts, she ended up with a tiny amount of quality writing. Practicing this technique, many of us might find our health suffering, along with our relationships with friends and loved ones.

Still, she learned writing discipline, the value of daily ritual. She experienced writing in the flow, without self-editing.

Exact

She tried something else, setting a more modest goal of 10,000 words every two weeks. This time, she strove for quality as well as quantity. She decided any kind of writing counted as part of her 10,000 words—short stories, novellas, screenplays, and poems. She worked on bits of everything, alternating, much like a farmer rotates crops.

With a variety of projects going at once, she found her creativity stimulated. Although she didn’t mention it, I suspect her relationships with others improved after stopping the previous Inflexible technique. The new, modest, 10,000-word goal helped relieve some mental pressure, and her product required less editing. However, I suspect most of us would gravitate toward short and easy projects to meet the word count goal.

From this technique she learned a better balance between quality and quantity.

Flexible

Still seeking a way to produce high-quality writing faster, she set precise end goals (a novel by this date, a screenplay by that date, etc.) but allowed time for flexing. She wrote based on the momentum of the moment, when the mood struck. While maintaining the discipline of writing each day, if she entered the flow zone, she went with it.

The emphasis on quality helped her writing. Having established good writing habits in the earlier techniques, she got quantity along with it. However, I suspect she still felt guilty when not writing, and she still wasn’t in tune with her muse, her inner creativity.

The Flexible stage teaches the elasticity of time itself. All hours are not equal for a writer. All days are not equal. Quality writing requires time, but cannot be created in a linear way.

Ideal Muse

Knowing now that her muse didn’t clock in and clock out at specific times, she merged all previous techniques and allowed her muse to schedule her writing. When the muse struck, she dropped everything and wrote, no matter what. If shopping, she wrote in the store. If driving, she pulled over and wrote. She set product-driven goals, not date-specific ones. Sometimes she wrote for five minutes, other times for five hours. She monitored her health, knowing she couldn’t write in an unhealthy state.

At which stage are you right now? If increasing my productivity means I must start with the Inflexible stage, I’m not ready to sacrifice everything else in life for my writing. Still, I believe I’ve gone through a lesser version of the first two stages, and am in the Flexible stage now.

Whoops. Hang on. The muse is calling—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 31, 2021Permalink

International Pronouns Day

Oh, English. You’re an interesting language, but you’re burdened with some old baggage. Maybe it’s time you changed.

logo for International Pronouns Day

Today is International Pronouns Day (IPD). A day to recognize your acquaintances might choose different pronouns than you expect, and it’s only polite to use the ones they want.

You might meet a stranger who says, “Hi. I’m Jessica and I go by the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘him.’ Since Jessica told you that, it would be impolite if you said to someone else, “I just met Jessica, and she…”

The discussion of pronouns interests me as a writer. As English changes, I’d like to keep up with it.

In general, pronouns serve as a naming shorthand, enabling us to refer to a person repeatedly without stating the person’s name each time. In a traditional written story, when a female character is speaking with a male character, the author need only write ‘she said’ or ‘he said’ and the reader can follow the dialogue with ease.

Although English does not divide all nouns into feminine and masculine genders as some other languages do, present-day English does include gender-specific pronouns such as ‘she,’ ‘her,’ ‘he,’ and ‘him.’  Although many people seem happy with that arrangement, some prefer to be thought of as an individual, not as a member of one or the other gender.

At the moment, the English language hasn’t settled on an agreed set of non-gender-specific pronouns for people. ‘It,’ ‘Its,’ and ‘Itself’ seem too dehumanizing. While many candidate pronouns vie for the honor, that leaves us in a period of flux until winners emerge through widespread use.

In the meantime, you may choose your own preferred pronoun, and—according to the promoters of International Pronouns Day—inform your friends and new acquaintances. They, in turn, should respect your wishes.

Still, I find it difficult to change at my age. I grew up in a time when you couldn’t choose your own pronouns. Language and biology chose them for you. I now have enough problems remembering people’s names, and if all my acquaintances chose different pronouns, I’d go around mis-pronouning them all the time.

In my fiction, I stand a chance of abiding by the IPD guidance. I just finished reading a novel where characters introduced themselves by stating their name and preferred pronouns. For my stories set in the world of today or the near future, I could do the same thing. Depending on how appropriate it might be for a given character, I’ll try it.

In the meantime, I wish you a happy International Pronouns Day. Delighted to meet you. I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe (he/him)

October 20, 2021Permalink

Link-Chart Your Story

Link charts—I know you’ve seen them. Big, poster-size charts with pictures and words, arrows and colored threads connecting things. Complex, but visually stunning. Could you use one to write your novel?

You’ve seen link charts on shows featuring detectives and others with basement conspiracy theorists. You may have seen two of them on a TV ad for CarGurus. Note: I’m neither endorsing nor disparaging CarGurus.

From what I understand, real-life detectives rarely, if ever, use link charts. But TV and movie detectives do, for two simple reasons. Link charts convey, in one picture, that the detective’s done a lot of work, and they show, at a single glance, a lot of relationships between people and things. They make for a great visual in a visual medium.

That second property may prove useful to you. If you’re writing a novel, you’re keeping track of many characters, settings, events, etc. To organize that data, you most likely think like a writer and write it all down—on sticky notes, index cards, notepaper in three-ring binders, computer files, online wikis, etc. You waste considerable time wading through your files to track down something you half-remember writing months ago.

At such times, you might wish you could have it all handy, in one place. A link chart might help. You’ve seen TV sleuths stare at their charts and snap their fingers, and you know they’ve just solved the case. Staring at a big picture of your novel might aid you, too.

Some years ago, I learned some of the data visualization principles espoused by Edward Tufte. He advocates data-rich illustrations that present all the data. Often these get very complex, but backing up from their complexity, a viewer discerns patterns, relationships, and trends. Tufte’s illustrations represent gestalts, greater than the sum of their parts.

I don’t know what Tufte would make of link charts in particular, but a well-made link chart can satisfy Tufte’s principles of visually representing data.

How might you set up a link chart for the novel you’re writing? Here are some ideas:

In the CarGurus TV commercial, the woman knows a quicker way for the man to get the car he wants, implying the link charts just wasted his time. However, until someone comes up with a NovelGuru app that writes a novel for you (c’mon, app developers, get on that!), a link chart might prove beneficial.

If you do develop your own link chart, consider hiding it so nobody else sees the thing without you being present to explain it. Someone happening upon your link chart might suspect you’re hunting for Big Foot, correlating UFO sightings, or planning a real-life murder.

Unless, of course, you’d rather have them think you’re doing those things, than writing a novel!

Whatever link chart you make, do not connect any threads between Big Foot, UFOs, or murders to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 17, 2021Permalink

How Readable is Your Story?

If you’d like your fiction to sell well, wouldn’t it be beneficial if readers found your stories easy to read?

Not all writers see it that way. Some authors of the world’s great classic literature made it tough on their readers, but their books still became bestsellers. Obviously, readability alone doesn’t determine great writing.

For the most part, the factors of great writing remain intangible, but you can measure readability. Many word processor software packages calculate the ‘Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease’ score, as well as the ‘Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level,’ both standard measures of readability. The higher the Reading Ease score and the lower the Grade Level, the more readable your story.

Journalist Shane Snow inspired me to think along these lines with this wonderful blogpost. He did a lot of research obtaining Flesch-Kincaid data on many great fiction authors, and graphed it all.

That made me wonder how I measured up. I obtained the data on my ten most recently published stories. Listed from least readable to most readable, here they are:

StoryFlesch-Kincaid Reading EaseFlesch-Kincaid Grade LevelGenreYear Written
“The Steam Elephant”69.06.8Alt Hist2006
“Target Practice”69.36.5Scifi1999
“The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall”69.86.5Alt Hist2011
“Reconnaissance Mission”71.46.2Alt Hist2019
“Ripper’s Ring”72.26.4Alt Hist2015
“Moonset”74.85.3Horror2018
“A Clouded Affair”75.95.5Scifi2014
“The Cats of Nerio-3”76.35.1Scifi2016
“After the Martians”78.35.1Scifi2015
“Instability”79.14.8Alt Hist2017

Not too many obvious patterns there. My alternate history stories tend toward less readability than my straight science fiction, but not always. To some degree, I’ve improved readability with the passing years, but there’s some scatter in that, too.

When I average the F-K Grade Level of these stories, I get 5.82. According to one of the charts in Shane Snow’s post, that puts me around the readability level of Hunter S. Thompson, and between early J.K. Rowling and Stephen King. Not bad company.

If my stories don’t sell as well as theirs, it only proves that, as I mentioned above, readability alone doesn’t make for great writing.

What if it did? Could you write in a way that maximizes your Flesch-Kincaid readability score? The Wikipedia entry gives the formula. It’s very simple. Just take your average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word, and the rest is math.

To make readers struggle, use long words and long sentences. To make your writing more readable, do the opposite.

To make your stories irresistible and widely sold…ah, that’s the magic formula I’d really like to know. That equation—whatever it is—might contain readability as one factor, but also many others. Ernest Hemingway earned a F-K Grade Level of just over 4, and Michael Crichton earned one a little under 9.

Shane Snow makes the point that a lower F-K Grade Level allows you to reach a larger potential audience for your stories. However, he cites two other factors that help determine whether your writing will gain traction and catch on. I’ll discuss my take on those in a future blogpost.

Although readability alone won’t determine whether your stories sell in the marketplace, consider this: if all other factors rated the same between two stories, wouldn’t you prefer the more readable one? I suspect you would, and so would—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 10, 2021Permalink

Can You Skip the Suffering Part?

Many great writers suffered early in life and during their writing careers. Of these, a good number wrote from a place of suffering, capturing that pain and creating timeless novels.

Did their suffering lead to classic writing? If so, would these authors have written so well if not for their suffering? In other words, is personal suffering necessary to produce great art?

Brian Feinblum explored this topic in a blogpost, and that’s what inspired my post today.

What about those of us who have led relatively happy and disease-free lives? Do we lack the necessary ingredients to produce great fiction?

The list of writers who suffered from health ailments alone (never mind other sorts of problems) is long. Here’s a partial list: 

  • John Milton—likely a detached retina leading to blindness
  • Jonathan Swift—Ménière’s Disease leading to vertigo and tinnitus, obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • The Brontë Sisters—tuberculosis and depression; one may have had Asperger’s Syndrome.
  • Herman Melville—pains in joints, back, and eyes due to Ankylosing Spondylitis which brought on depression
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky—epilepsy, gambling addiction, severe depression
  • Jules Verne—stomach cramps from colitis, painful facial paralysis from Bell’s Palsy
  • Edith Wharton—typhoid fever, asthma
  • Jack London—bipolar disorder, scurvy, alcoholism, leg ulcers
  • Virginia Woolf—depression, mood swings, hallucinations
  • James Joyce—eye problems after gonorrhea treatments
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald—heavy drinking, heart disease
  • Ernest Hemingway—depression, alcoholism, electroshock treatments
  • George Orwell—damaged bronchial tubes after childhood bacterial infection, tuberculosis
  • Tennessee Williams—depression, drug and alcohol addiction
  • Sylvia Plath—depression; shock therapy; several suicide attempts

Perhaps your life doesn’t include any ailments nearly as severe as any on that list. Does that eliminate you from contention on some future list of great authors?

Fiction revolves around conflict, and therefore fictional characters must suffer. That’s necessary so readers can believe in them, identify with them, and root for them during their struggles.

Writers with health problems may have an edge here. They can write out of their own painful experiences. They’ve gazed into the abyss themselves, and garner instant credibility.

However, not all people who’ve suffered end up as successful novelists. Further, not all great writers suffered from anything more severe than the typical pains of a normal life.

I think what matters more is your ability to identify deeply with a suffering character you’ve created, and to convey that suffering to readers with your words. That strong empathy will come through, and distinguish your writing.

You needn’t have endured intense personal suffering to create great fiction. Make your protagonist suffer, though, and convince your readers to care about that character.

Hellen Keller knew something about the subject, and wrote, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

You may not have suffered as she did, but you can write. On the journey toward great fiction writing, whether you’ve suffered or not, you’re free to join—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 3, 2021Permalink

Metrics of Fiction-Writing Success

Every writer wants to know the secret to publishing success. How can you get your first story published? How can you make more money from your writing?

What if somebody did a statistical analysis comparing successful writers to unsuccessful ones to find out what one group has and the other one lacks?

Someone did.

Written Word Media performed that analysis a few years ago, and their founder and Chief Operating Officer, Ferol Vernon, blogged about the results.

They polled a large group of authors and concentrated on two groups: financially successful authors earning greater than $5000 a month from book sales, and “emerging authors” earning less than $500 a month from book sales. What follows is a summary of the five main differences between the two groups.

The more successful group:

  1. Wrote more;
  2. Hired a professional book cover designer;
  3. Hired a professional editor;
  4. Used free promotions; and
  5. Wrote in a popular genre.

Written Word Media drew the obvious conclusion—to be a successful writer, do the things successful writers are doing.

I don’t doubt their methods or their numbers. I’d be a bit skeptical about some of the conclusions, however. Here’s why:

  • In my experience with metrics, I’ve learned people tend to measure only things they can easily measure. Statisticians like quantifiable numbers, or specific questions with yes or no answers. However, success is filled with intangibles, too. For example, how do you measure the quality of a writer’s books? How about the luck of writing the right book at the right time?
  • Sometimes, statisticians fall prey to mistaking causes for effects. For example, they see a high correlation between high-earning authors and the hiring of book designers and editors. They conclude that those authors are successful because of those factors. However, once an author becomes successful, that author is in a better position to hire a book designer and editor, so perhaps the success caused the hiring of experts, not the other way around.  
  • Last, there’s the ‘necessary but not sufficient’ argument. The list of five things may well be characteristics of successful writers, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that if you do those five things, you will be successful.

I don’t mean for my quibbles to detract from the value of the analysis, though. I’m certain if you write more, offer free promotions, and write in a popular genre, you’ll stand a greater chance of getting more book sales than if you don’t do those things.

As for paying book cover designers and editors, I’m a little less certain.

Regarding the intangibles, the unquantifiables not included in the analysis, I’d suggest you strive to write well. Write good stories readers would like to read. Write with your own, consistent, distinct style. Write from the heart.

How do you measure and graph those things? No idea. Don’t ask—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 26, 2021Permalink

Writing and the 1st Amendment

Today is Constitution Day in the U.S., the 234th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. Since that document includes a 1st Amendment, and since that amendment is important to writers, I thought I’d mark this anniversary.

The text is straightforward: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…” Sounds simple, but over the centuries, lawyers and scholars have debated every word of that amendment, including ‘the.’

In theory, the 1st Amendment frees fiction writers to write about anything they want. That’s a good thing. Writers need not fear the government jailing or fining them for what they write.

In practice, the Supreme Court has imposed limits applicable to fiction writers:

  1. You may engage in political writing, unless it poses a “clear and present danger” of bringing about an evil that the Congress has a right to prevent. Over the years, the prohibitions have narrowed in favor of more freedom for the writer.
  2. If you’re a student in school, you’re subject to some limitations on what you can write about in a school-sponsored publication.
  3. You’re limited in the types of obscenity and pornography you can write about, but again, the prohibitions have narrowed in favor of the writer.
  4. You can’t defame, slander, or libel someone. The definitions of those have narrowed as well.
  5. You may not copy someone else’s writing and claim it as your own.

Some of the founders, including James Madison, at first objected to the inclusion of the 1st Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights, arguing that the Constitution already implied and contained these individual rights, that they required no separate enumeration.

In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing they ratified the Bill of Rights. Governments, by their very nature, grow and seek to restrict the freedom of individuals. Without a written and obvious restriction on governmental growth, the Supreme Court might have had a harder time digging ‘freedom of speech’ out of the basic Constitution’s text. 

For now, you’re free to write just about anything, and that’s something to celebrate. Happy Anniversary, 1st Amendment! Though you’re old, a bit tattered, and under constant assault, you’re looking pretty good to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 17, 2021Permalink

Negentropy and Writing

Do you recall one of your physics teachers mentioning the concept of entropy? Today I’d like to discuss its opposite, negentropy, and how that applies to writing.

Entropy depresses me. I dislike the idea that energy changes into less and less useful forms, that order becomes chaos, and that the universe eventually runs down and stops.

Negentropy seems more fun. While we all wait for the universe to wind down, we can take tiny chunks of it and turn chaos into order within those chunks.

I ran across this article by Dr. Alison Carr-Chellman where she explores the concept of negentropy as it applies to everyday things like cleaning your room or making your workplace run smoother. I wondered if her concepts could apply to writing fiction.

Writing, itself, epitomizes negentropy. The inputs—life experiences, a brain, and writing implements—get converted to a single output, fiction. Chaos becomes order.

But is your fiction-producing process smooth and efficient? Are you losing energy along the way? Think about achieving maximum output (published fictional stories) for minimum input (personal time and energy).

Dr. Carr-Chellman provides five steps for improving that efficiency (she calls it ‘minimizing energy loss’). I’ll discuss each as they apply to writing fiction.

1: Find the entropy. Think of the steps involved in getting to a published story. Which of those steps (examples: researching, editing) take the most time for you? Which do you put off or rush through (ex: scene setting, choosing a title) because you hate doing them? Which steps do you agonize over (ex: submitting, marketing) because you don’t understand them well?

2: Prioritize the losses. Identify the biggest entropy problems, so you tackle them first. Not only will this provide the best gains in efficiency, but your success will embolden you to solve the others in a similar manner.

3: Come up with a plan. For the steps taking too much time, consider self-imposed time limits. For the steps you hate, give yourself small rewards for completing them. For the steps you don’t understand well, learn about them from TED talks, YouTube videos, books, or internet searches.

4: Try it out and pay attention. As you implement your improvement plans, track how they’re working. Did you put more energy and time into the plan itself than the improvement warranted?

5: Go beyond fixing and maintenance. As you plug all these energy leaks and achieve a smoother process, consider the bigger picture. Perhaps you’ve now developed a very efficient method for selling low-grade stories. That may not have been your desire. It’s not worth optimizing a process that doesn’t result in the output you want.

If you start implementing negentropy into your writing now, you stand a great chance of optimizing it before maximum entropy brings about the heat death of the universe. That event may happen as soon as ten to the hundredth power years from now. That’s a googol years. Best not to schedule anything in your personal organizer for any date after that event.

Negentropy, turning chaos into order. That’s the main job of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 12, 2021Permalink