#PenPower Project: 1.2 The Villain

Hi folks

In my last #PenPower post we got to meet the heroes who will be going up against the darkest force in the universe (writerly blockages). This time we'll explore in some detail what it is writers are afraid of.

A quick practical intermission: This post was supposed to go live Saturday 29.02. instead of March 1. Apologies. If you're reading on Bleeding Fool it's probably already Monday or Tuesday. There appears to be a slight lag due to time zones that I'm intending to get under better control for the remainder of the series.

The intent with PenPower Project is to post once a week (more on this below) on Friday (Saturday/Sunday if you're reading on Bleeding Fool). This post is also a bit of a unicorn.

Here is a list of the posts (and topics) updated regularly:

1: #PenPower Myth Debunk #1: Write Every Day
2: #PenPower Myth Debunk #2: I have to write FAST!
3: #PenPower #3: Rules and Fear (How to beat your writerly worries)
4: #PenPower Myth Debunk #4: I MUST outline

So without further ado, let's delve into the what, how, and why of writing fears!

PenPower 1.2 The Villain

Don't think she's a villain because she has books? Look more closely! The books are all empty!

There are plenty of things to worry about when starting a new story/project. There are even more when you're already halfway into the fledgling novel/short story/novella and the plot/characters/circumstances aren't coming together. And then yet more when you've finished the first draft and realize it's a pile of nonsense you somehow have to make work in a painful weeks-long edit.

To find out the most juicy writerly fears I've both run a survey (still available here: What are your writing fears? Leave a comment!) and scoured the le ole internet for those writerly posts and comments that sound the most like panic.

PenPower's writing heroes are no immune to this either! Here are some examples courtesy of our sometimes-despairing heroes:

(There are more colourful ones by Anna but I'm trying to keep this post PG. Check out her twitter @AnnaSmithWrites if you're interested!)

All in all the reasons for writerly despair are many:

THE BLANK PAGE.

THE (confusingly/messily/makes-no-sense) FILLED PAGE.

What if it's not good enough?

What if I'm never able to finish it? I've been working on this for ten years and it's not complete!

What if it's not original enough?

Is my process wrong? Should I be doing X? Should I stop using adverbs entirely? Do I need the Oxford comma? (Hint: You do, whatever everyone else says, the Oxford comma makes things prettier whenever you use it!)

I don't know where I'm going! How can I write it?!

I'm a perfectionist. Will I ever be able to write this well enough?

I'm blocked. The middle sucks. What should I do? I can't take time off work to iron out these kinks!


Have worries like these been circling around in your head (perhaps for years)? Have you been stressing out about your writing works in process? If you're worried about any aspect of your writing then this post is for you.

1.2.1 The form of #PenPower Project series: We have collected twelve authors who will be helping us debunk the above and more myths and terrors that like to sit on writers' shoulders and whisper unpleasant nothings into their ears. The form this debunking will take are author interviews. I've found 8 juicy questions relating to fears to put to our 12 author/editor superheroes. We'll be debunking one of these prevalent writing myths per week = 8 weeks of fortifying posts! It'll be part making you feel more comfortable with your writing style/writing pace/ideas and part superhero training camp. Soon enough your own novel will hit the shelves! (Disclaimer: Don't hold me to this. You have to put in some blood sweat and tears yourself to make this work!). We'll be busy well into April!

Next week (Saturday the 7th) we'll be starting off with one of the most horrifyingly rigid myths: Write. Every. Day.

Has anyone else ever felt this rule is much too rigid? That your brain NEEDS time off from being creative and just consume... say Amazon Prime's new short film series inspired by Simon Stålenhag's art book? Or maybe it's a rewatch of Community you need. Some writers call this filling the well. I call it being a well-rounded character. All other professions get time off. Why shouldn't writers? And then there's the fact that some of our superheroes only write once a week/month or perhaps two months out of twelve!

Stay tuned to find out more next Saturday!

#PenPower Project 1.1: Introduction to the Heroes!

Hi writers and readers!

In my most recent post before this I discussed what PenPower Project is about. In short it's a series of essays and questions answered by my (and soon your) favourite authors designed to debunk the myths of writer's block and all kinds of other writerly fears.

Today it's time to introduce our heroes and villain!

Those who have been following the #penpower tag closely on Twitter will know this post has been meticulously prepared for the last two months. I've sent out links to a survey to ask you all what your worst writing fears are and I've commissioned an artist, the great Oscar Celestini, to work me with on illustrations of our writing superheroes.

Oscar has now finished illustrating and the survey has run its course. Thank you to all who participated in it! (PS: If you'd still like tell us about your writing fears please feel free to leave a comment on blogspot!)

So without further ado here are the twelve authors who have generously decided to sacrifice their time for the greater good to help other writers fight the fear of the blank page:

1. SUE BURKE (who gives plants people personalities and seems to love bamboo almost more than is reasonable!)

SUE is a very mobile superhero. She's lived in Milwaukee, Austin, Madrid, and now defends Chicago of writerly deprivation. Sue's published short stories, poems, and articles in a variety of magazines and anthologies, and her novel Semiosis was published by Tor in February 2018. Its sequel, Interference, in 2019. (That's the books about people-plants and bamboo!)

Her superpower? She's flying through the pages of her books!






 

2. CAITLIN STARLING (who has written the coolest lesbian romance creepy sci-fi ghost-cave adventure of 2019.)

CAITLIN lives near Portland and wrangles spreadsheets as well as being a writer. She has an unhealthy interest the dark and macabre and she writes horror-tinged speculative fiction of all flavours. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her writerly superpower is currently exercised in two more forthcoming gothic horror novels: Yellow Jessamine and the Death of Jane Lawrence.






 
3. TIM PRATT (who is definitely not dissolving but teleporting! And writes about many stars - wrong and forbidden and dreaming. Plus lesbians.)

TIM lives in California with his wife and son. As an extremely prolific writer he has so many achievements there is no space to put them all in this blog post. Suffice to say he's written novels, novellas, taken part in collections and anthologies with his short stories and poetry, and is a senior editor for Locus magazine on the side. If you're interested in the whole story check out his website: Tim Pratt's full biography

4. YOON HA LEE (who invented a whole grand new universe for his Korean inspired space opera!)

YOON is a Korean-American sf/f writer who received a B.A. in maths from Cornell University and an M.A. in math education from Stanford University. Yoon finds it a source of continual delight that math can be mined for story ideas. Yoon's fiction has appeared in publications such as F&SF, Tor.com, and Clarkesworld Magazine, as well as several year's best anthologies.

His superpower? To blow up spaceships (which he does a lot in his Machineries of Empire books!)

 5. THORAIYA DYER (who writes exciting stories about a place called Canopy and another called Understorey. There's people who reincarnate - possibly into gods - and live in/on/around trees. Honestly it's much better than that though.)

THORAIYA is a writer from Australia. As an Australian superhero it's almost natural she loves animals of all sorts (even the creepy crawly ones). Thoraiya is also an archer and her tools to defeat writer's block are many: As with Tim Pratt her accomplishments are too many to fit into one puny post: short stories in various magazines and anthologies. Novels: Crossroads of Canopy, Echoes of Understorey, The Tides of Titans. Check out her website instead: Thoraiya Dyer writing.





6. ANNA STEPHENS (vast imagination, multiple characters, gritty grimdark epic fantasy!)

ANNA lives in the UK and has written a trilogy of grimdark fantasy called GODBLIND. Anna started her writerly superhero journey early in life: As a child she raided the library. As an adult she collects Doctor Who memorabilia and Wonder Woman and Star Wars figures. She's also a sword-fighter, a Karate black belt, and DnD enthusiast.

All of that combined made Godblind quite an imaginative and terrific adventure to read!

Her superpower? Flying, obviously, and see the tail? She can grab things with it (such as her pen and paper if she wants to!)

7. EOWYN IVEY (here's one from a cold place writing fiction that should be cold but will instead melt your cold heart of writerly despair)

EOWYN has been raised in Alaska and now lives there with her husband and two children. Her debut novel, The Snow Child, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013. One of the first things you might have noticed about Eowyn is her name: Eowyn Ivey was named by her mother after the well-known character Eowyn in Lord of the Ring. And isn't that already a set-up to becoming a great writer?







 8. ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY (spiders in space! Highly creative novels and novellas abound. Adrian is a mastermind who cannot be called evil due to the amount of work he creates!)

ADRIAN is the author of the acclaimed Shadows of the Apt fantasy series. He has been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award and British Fantasy Society Award. In civilian life, he used to be a lawyer, and is still a gamer and entomologist.

His superpower? Shapeshifting into animals! (I'm not sure what this has to do with writing, but take it from me, you won't get bored if you add Adrian's books to your reading list!)

9. KAT ROCHA (now here's a writer/editor/content creator with tons of variety in her superhero kit!)

KAT began her publishing career as a collaborating artist on such projects as Utopiates and Titanium Rain. She went on to produce numerous concept designs for Spartan Games and has had her work features in Interzone Magazine. She began her own comic series entitled LD30: The Adventures of a Swinging Robot in 2010 and in 2011 she founded 01Publishing. Kat is active as well on Youtube (where she talks about writerly concepts and popular art and comics and all sorts strange of things - sometimes with her husband!) and has edited two cosmic horror short story collections entitled Whispers from the Abyss.

Her superpower? Well if the short bio above doesn't give you a hint, I don't know what to tell you!


10. MARTHA WELLS (inventor of friendly robots and heck has her first Murderbot novella won many awards! I'm serious. Keep reading about her. This is a great chance to learn the writing process!)

MARTHA Wells has written an impressive amount of novels, novellas, and short stories, the first of which (a novel by the name of The Element of Fire) was  published by Tor in 1993. One of her most recent works, the novella All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries published by Tor.com was a 2017 Philip K. Dick award finalist and won: an ALSA/YALSA Alex Award, a Hugo Aware for Best Novella, a Nebula Award for Best Novella, and a Locus Award.

If we cannot learn from her, then from who? In addition to offering her answers to my interview questions for this project Martha has her own writing guide as well!

 

11. JOHN LANGAN (the villainous page's laughter quickly fades when faced with John Langan - and his wife's - determination to finish The Fisherman. I can't talk about the reader's laughter. I found the creeping horror of John's novel delightful.)

JOHN is an American author and writer of contemporary horror. He has been a finalist for and nominee for several Horror awards and finally won the Bram Stoker Award for his novel The Fisherman in 2016.

John's superpower? He says it'd be something like Dr. Strange's. I'd argue it's more in the direction of atmospheric writing and delightfully creepy stories of (sometimes) cosmic horror.

12. RICHARD S. FORD (heroic fantasy and balls to the wall action - yes I stole this line from his website -)

RICHARD lives in [unknown] but has written several short stories and novels (all available on his website!). They are mostly fantasy and then, heroic, because what else could this particular superhero write? Richard enjoys Warhammer 40k and is rendered as a superhero with a space marine's armor. His superpower? Tenacity. Hunk. Down. And. Write.

It seems to have worked for him. Is there some more advice we can mine from his answers? You just bet there is!







And last but not least we must consider the villain.

What are our writers up against? Considering the length of this post this will be the subject of an entirely new one - to be released Saturday (because what is worse than your writing fears threatening your perfect weekend?)

WriteBot.

2020: projects, deadlines, reading list

It's taken me a month to write this blog post (I'm terrible!). There are several reasons for that. At first I was busy with the day job (within one month I had to travel three times!) and then got caught up with coursework for my MLitt. And recently I've started tinkering with an old project again and got somewhere until I got stuck.

Fun times.

Let's talk about my MLitt course project instead. It's supposed to be about editing and publication so I decided to make it fun.

I've asked several of my favourite authors and editors to work with me on this and they've (almost) all agreed to interviews. (Yay!)

There will be another post shortly to introduce THE HOST. (The host as in the host of characters I've interviewed for the project). After all you already know the Hive Princess.

The project theme is writing fears and I was able to ask some juicy questions about it. The project itself will take the shape of blog posts: essays combined with answers from the interviews.

What are my favourite authors afraid of? What gives them gray hairs the most? Those questions and more will be tackled in the upcoming project. The hype logline: A series of blog posts that de-mystifies writing and gets rid of the blank-page fear! So stay tuned!


There's a few other things (but by no means all) I'll be working on this year:

1. getting a short story published. I think it's high time for this. As vain as it sounds my writing has gotten quite good over the years and if I don't start to attempt getting published I never will. There's no time like today!

2. being more deliberate in my use of 'spare time'. I've managed to read 50 books despite getting a new day job and played plenty of League of Legends (I got to Gold II so beat it!). So there's no excuse of 'having no time to write' for example. As I see it, reading is fun, but ultimately, it's writing and publication that I want. That means reading will have to take a backseat and become less of a coping mechanism for my fear of the blank page (plus, we're debunking those fears in my upcoming project anyway, so I'm hoping to get some amazing results this year!).

3. The website. Capital The. The website needs an overhaul. I still like the way it looks but I'm unhappy with its contents. For one, Amazon removed one of my books from KDP for some reason (? dude, I've read worse on there!) so this will go up on the website instead. For another, for the website of a writer, there's suspiciously few stories, and that'll have to change. Henceforth (Ok, as soon as I can get to it) there shall be stories on the website itself.

    
4. And last here is my reading list: https://locusmag.com/2020/02/2019-locus-recommended-reading-list/
That's right. I'll be reading all the novels on this list.

Hive Princess/WriteBot/Your Overlord out.

Reviews of two (vastly different) fantasy trilogies

Hey all!

This week's reviews will put two trilogies (one realistic fantasy and one epic fantasy) into their crosshairs. The trilogies are:

Godblind by Anna Stephens (@AnnaSmithWrites) and Winternight by Katherine Arden (@arden_katherine). I've decided to review the two of them because they were both unique in their own way. They captured my attention and didn't let it go and I even missed some video gaming time to read them.

I'll talk about Winternight first.

The Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden:

Winternight starts with The Bear and the Nightingale. This came out in 2011 and it has taken Katherine Arden about seven years to finish the trilogy. The Bear and the Nightingale. I'm reasonably sure you've all heard of it by now. If not - this is your chance. Buy the book. Read it. It's definitely worth it. Then buy the other two and read them as well.

The story of Winternight begins with some background (but it's by no means boring) about how a witch girl was born and the first few years of her wild life in 14th century Russia.

As the rest of Rus starts believing in a God and the monks who tend to this God the (hearth-)spirits/devils/demons (called chyerti in plural) of old Rus are forgotten more and more... which makes them fade and become powerless. But not in Vasya's family. Vasya (the descendant of an ancient line of witches) has the sight and makes it a point to deal with chyerti just as she would with any human ally. They are her friends.

Trouble arrives in the form of the Bear - the king of chaos - and Morozko - the winter king and king of death. I don't want to go too deeply into either of the storylines but suffice to say they divide into a really beautiful romance (albeit not so much in the first book) and a harrowing and uncaring enemy. In the second and third books (The Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Witch) these villains and lovers are elaborated on and more dangers are introduced. Rus has to fight foes both religious/spiritual and worldly if it is going to survive.

Let me first of all say I'm not into romance. At all. I dislike the cringey YA romances where everything is perfect and a kiss is treated as if someone found the holy grail and I also despise the usually epic fantasy romance which is a) overdone and b) smarmy and rather fucked-up most of the time. However. I really enjoyed the romance in the Winternight trilogy. It's not obvious (at first) and it's subtle throughout. It doesn't make the (female) main character go crazy with besottedness. It is a partnership between two strong people and neither one takes crap from the other.

The second reason this trilogy is so beautiful is the story itself. You could say it meanders a bit - but at the same time the plot is razor-sharp without fluff. It meanders in the way that you're sucked into a magical kingdom and neither want to nor can leave. It's beautifully written and 100% worth the hours you'll spend on it. (And I don't say this about many books). It is truly a masterpiece of combined Russian folklore with... beauty.

Heck. I don't even like horses (at all! I'm serious!) but I really loved the horse-characters in this book. THAT is saying something considering all other books I've started that had talking horses were swiftly dropped.

Don't believe me still what a masterpiece this is? Buy it and see for yourself.

The next books we're taking a look at is Anna Stephen's Godblind trilogy.

The Godblind trilogy by Anna Stephens:

I'm not usually someone who likes 'THIS IS ALL PROPHECY' kind of storylines, and I still don't, but Anna Stephens must have done something right. I could put neither book down while reading them and it's still in my mind two weeks later.

The story was just incredibly well-written (with several POVs) and I just really wanted to know what happens (and what will happen in the third installment) at all times in the book. That being said... I disliked a lot of the characters. There are some whose only purpose seems to be to 'be there' (prophecy) and others who just change their personality in the blink of an eye. Then again this isn't really a problem per se. It's just how it is and my preference (and nothing is 100% perfect). I'm sure there are people who like Dom.

This trilogy then is completely different to Katherine Arden's Winternight. It's an epic fantasy whereas Winternight is more historical fantasy set in the 'real' world. The only reason they're in the same post is because they're both fantasy and I really enjoyed both of them in the last two-three weeks (and none of the other books I read was as good).

A bit more about the Godblind prophecy:
A lot of Godblind and Darksoul relies on it. Prophecy here, prophecy there, and one of the main characters is a prophet, and another (ok, more than one others) the CHOSEN ONE. As a result, a lot of the events in the book are caused by prophecy (at some point in Godblind even inexplicably, as in, it didn't make a lot of sense to happen this way), and yet, while reading it, it doesn't feel bad/like 'book explains everything because of prophecy' (cough Harry Potter). Indeed, the characters are very headstrong, and each have their own will, goals, and desires, and the prophecy part... Is not actually very very relevant at all. I'm guessing there might be another series after this is completed to make sense of the prophecy, or the prophecy itself is some kind of... 'It could apply to anyone'/'There are multiple peolpe it could apply to' plot.

Anyway. Godblind and Darksoul were the first really cool books I've read since Tim Pratt's The Dreaming Stars. I can guarantee you'll be sucked in and not let go once you start. In this case, the sucked in part also comes from the writing style itself. Anna Stephens doesn't muck around with endless description and boring fluff, but goes straight into action every single scene. It reads almost like a thriller, but it's definitely epic fantasy, and I'm really hoping the author will write more books in this world because I'm curious about all those countries mentioned which doesn't feature in these books.

The only caveat of the amazingness of these books I'd have to mention is the gore. The author's writing style makes it easy to read even when someone's getting nailed to a cross BUT the violence/blood/gore IS there. If you're a bit twitchy or faint-hearted this might not be the good for you. Then again. I usually don't read this kind of stuff and GOT was too much for me (I had to skip over a lot of writing/chapters while reading it) but as I've said above Anna Stephens has a very clean writing style which can put some distance between you and the book. It's almost sterile sometimes and definitely not as raw as GRRM's GOT but still quite immersive.

Does this sound like something you'd like? Read it and let me know in the comments what you thought! I'd love to get some input!

WriteBot.

Reviews of three aquatic horror/sci-fi books

Hey everyone!

This week's reviews will focus on aquatic horror! I've always loved the ocean and water and therefore wanted to read something scary connected to it. I wanted horror... I got sci-fi and stories that mostly just fizzled out. Here are three ocean-themed books in short review:

(Note: I'm not going to include blurbs. Those are easy to find on google or if you click on the titles of the books in this post.)

The Swarm by Frank Schätzing: This was arguably the best aquatic horror/sci-fi I've read in the last few weeks. There is a reason it's a bestseller even though it's about 900 pages long all in all. This book is set in the real world although with sci-fi elements (in the form of intelligent bacteria) who are making a mess of the planet. It's not creepy and horror-ish per se but has a sort of slowly building 'terrible tension' instead. A lot of characters die - and all of their deaths are justified. There isn't much needless information (or red-shirt death) in the book and everything serves a purpose. The writing is sometimes a bit too philosophical for me (I'm not into long monologues about the state of the world, ethics, and morals) but for most of the book incredibly sharp with no words wasted. However, there are a lot of explanation scenes, where one character will be ignorant, and another the 'teacher'. These are quite obviously included to clue in the reader... which would be fine if it weren't so obvious and always handled the same way.
Character A: 'Do you know about this?'
Character B: 'Uh... no...'/'Uh... it would be good if you refreshed my knowledge!'/'Uh... I only know the basics.'
Character A: 'Here we go! A three-page tirade on THIS VERY SPECIFIC SCIENTIFIC SUBJECT.'
It's not terrible and a lot of it is useful but I'd still argue it isn't strictly needed to advance the story. Of course... if you're a science buff then this is right up your alley.
All in all the book was amazing and the whole of the 900 pages only took me some three days (not even reading the whole day) to finish simply because it was well written (I should probably say translated because I read it in English and it's a German book) and without fluff. I definitely recommend reading this!

Sphere by Michael Crichton: Here is a book that started well and ended disappointing. In a lot of instances Sphere is marketed as horror - but it's really not unless you're already afraid of the ocean and the creatures living in it. It actually is almost pure thriller with some sci-fi (could have guessed that by Crichton's other work). And because it is a thriller the writing drew me in immediately and didn't let me go until the end. I even did more than thrice my usual 30 minutes of stationary bike exercise while reading it. Hello 100 minutes of hard biking!
The actual story started out great as well. There's something at the bottom of the ocean and it's presumedly alien in origin. How cool is that! I'm sure there are more books with the premise (The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham comes to mind... but that was also a disappointment) but let's give Crichton a try! It was good until about 70% in. I'm beginning to think a lot of books are. Then it became weird in a bad way. The premise of the alien spaceship crashing into Earth's oceans (with perhaps an alien prisoner trapped in the prison 'sphere' of the book's title) and weird/creepy shit happening while people are trapped in a submarine station at the bottom of the ocean is really cool... But then it turns out that while the sphere might be alien the spaceship really isn't. Instead it's human and from the future. Huh? A first red flag. Time travel stories usually don't work. But this is time travel PLUS some weird alien junk being deposited in 'the past' (the book's present). It gets more disappointing from then on. There are no aliens. The prison sphere doesn't have a prisoner. The predator who's been hunting the trapped-undersea people and killing a lot of them is the figment of one human's imagination. The prison sphere isn't a prison but some sort of voodoo ayurevedic The Alchemist -style 'you can make anything true if you just believe in it' yogi shit. It gives people the power to make THINGS true! And some people just have creepy horror ideas in their heads that haunt the whole expedition.
Zzz...
And then comes the ending... which is neither logical nor reasonable. The main characters (including a power-hungry woman) agree to 'forget' about the power they've found which in effect makes the power cease to exist. That would be ok all in all (since the book's disappointing conclusion has already been established) but doesn't make sense. Why would forgetting you have the power to do something remove all the physical evidence of the source of that power (as the book suggests)? Well. It doesn't. And there are hints that at least one of the characters retains the power anyway. Anyway. I don't recommend this book. It simply doesn't live up to its awesome premise and all you'll feel after reading it is let down.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire): The book started out well. The beginning was creepy and tense like a proper horror and had me all high-strung with anticipation. I was very excited for the rest of the book. The first two thirds of ItDD lived up to that promise. Things became direr and direr the more words were read. The horror premise of face-eating mermaids in the Mariana Trench was paying off! Then suddenly around the 75% mark everything... fizzled out. The plot became boring and gratuitous. The main characters were in no danger whatsoever. Of a whole of six main characters all six survived. The rest of the cast (supporting characters and red shirts) were dying in troves and getting their faces eaten off but the main characters had so much plot armour (I'm guessing because the author really really wanted to have a happy ending to the book) the whole book was ruined. The only characters who died were the assholes every reader wants to die anyway. The story lost approximately all of its credibility when ALL the good main characters survived and ALL the bad guys died. Had the author not been trying so hard to keep her darlings alive the stakes might have been higher and tension up until the end of the book. As it was it was quite evident McGuire was afraid of killing her darlings (even though at least a few out of the six should have died) and therefore this book doesn't get a recommendation from me.

Have you read any of these books? Let me know what you think! I'd love to know your opinion on these books!

WriteBot.

FAQ: How do you know if you're good at writing?

How do you know if your writing's any good?
 

The first step to answering this question is to determine what 'writing' we're talking about.

Writing processes?
Your writing style (prose/words on the page) or your ability to put together a coherent story (plot/reader excitement)?
The Ability to obtain an Agent and a Publisher?

In this case we'll be talking mainly about two things:

1. your ability to write well (prose/words on page)
2. your ability to tell a story (plot/reader excitement)

Let's briefly go back to the question.

How do you know if your writing's any good?

I don't know. It's hard to tell. I've been writing stories since age 9 (although perhaps not as seriously then as now). This means about twenty (frequently) interrupted years of experience (= perhaps five consecutive 'serious' years all in all if it comes down to it). And I still struggle.

Proposition! Writing can often not be quantified. You can read a book and immediately know it's well written (prose) or not. Or you can get 70% into an exciting new read only to be let down by the ending and realize how much the author squandered their story's potential in order to keep their darlings protected (plot) and have a happy ending.

(Case in point! The horror novel 'Into the Drowning Deep' by Mira Grant. It started out with a really cool horror premise including aquatic beings ripping apart people and then progressively became worse because the author wanted a happy ending and none of the main characters could die because then the happy ending would have failed. It's simply not realistic when the alien horde is ripping off every other characters' faces but all six main characters are left alone BECAUSE.)

Let's try another author:

Is Stephen King good at writing (prose)? I don't know. His style isn't something I'd usually read and neither is his content. This doesn't mean it's good or bad. It's simply not something for me personally. BUT I can tell you one thing for sure: He's an incredibly strong story-teller. If he weren't then people wouldn't buy his books.

Another:

Is Stephenie Meyer a good writer (prose)? Is the Twilight series well written? I want to say HELL NO! The first chapter had my eyelids drooping and the second actually made me doze off. Twilight was the first book I couldn't even force myself to finish (a common practice when you want to read widely and even read crap sometimes to know what to avoid) and had to put aside! BUT! At the same time there are a lot of people who enjoy her style and with several millions books sold you can't fault her storytelling towards her audience. It's impossible to deny her ability to tell a story people want to read.

What follows out of these examples is perhaps that one must ask oneself not if one is good at the writing process - at putting words on the page - but perhaps whether one has the ability to tell a good story. Don't get me wrong here either. I say a good story and I mean a good story (such as the most of The Drowning Deep and all of The Swarm by Frank Schätzing) and not just 'a story'. Anyone can write a story. That doesn't mean it'll be any good.

(Case in point! My own first stories - and probably everyone's first stories - written at 9-14 years old were messy and usually went unfinished. The next batch of stories 14-21 years old steadily improved in content/ideas/prose if not in the finishing part. At the age of 21 then I finally finished my first novel-length work. It is a good book but of course has some flaws. These days? I like to write short fiction and fiction that makes people think more than the simple - often YA - adventures stories that were my focus during the ages of 21-25. But with the goal of 'making people think' comes another challenge. You can't get by any more with a good story. You need a superb story. And that requires a totally different skillset than a good story.)

So.

How do you know if you're good at writing at all? There are two rules:

1. You're bound to get better if you practice a lot. This means if you've written 100 short stories in your life and you try to practice whenever you can you're already much better than the shmuck who hasn't written a single story or even ten (including your former self). There is no way you can write 100 stories and not get better.

2. If you like it and it makes sense then it's usually good. I know. This goes against most of the advice you hear around the writer's water cooler. That's usually more like: 'if you think it's good then it sucks'. But I don't buy into that theory. I believe everyone has their own compass within themselves that'll tell them 'This sucks' or 'This is great'. Writing - like any art - comes down to personal preference. If you like what you've written then there are bound to be other people who will like it as well.

Does this last part mean your prose or story structure is objectively good? It might be or it might not. The only relevant question you should ask yourself is: Does this story tell what I wanted it to tell? If the answer is no (and believe me you'll spend the magical 10.000 hours and write the magical 1.000.000 words and still say no occasionally) then there's only one thing to do to get better: Back to the drawing board.

WriteBot.

PS: If you'd like to chat with me about this aspect (or any other) of the writing craft please write a comment in the section below! If you want more of this kind of content follow me on Twitter (@Jasmingelinck) and subscribe to my e-mail list through the short form on the right!

The Future Trajectory of this Blog

The Future of this Blog

I'm sorry to have been absent. I had to re-think the approach of this blog (and I'm not sure I'm done with it!). I've however come to and come to the conclusion that the blog as it was didn't work.  There was nothing of real interest in the there (except the book reviews, which a lot of you liked!), so it has to change track. The new blog will focus a lot more on two specific things: 1.) MY thoughts on writing and 2.) Reviews/Analyses of books

The changes in style mentioned above will be tagged in each post. There will be three primary tags used:

FAQ: This is the 'my thoughts on writing' part. I'll be taking questions writers frequently ask and answer them with my opinion.

Review: non-fiction and fiction reviews of books I liked and think might be worth your while as well

Update/Current WIP/WIP: This is where everything related to my own stories goes.

This in turn means that there are really only three things this blog will focus on:

1. Writing-related craft questions
2. Book reviews
3. Updates on new stories I plan to publish

I expect the writing craft questions to be published once a week and the book reviews whenever it's relevant. I don't always read good books (unfortunately some turn out to suck after I'm 70% in - Hello Into the Drowning Deep!) and won't waste your time reviewing something useless.

The updates on my own stories as well are not really quantifiable at this point. I have a vague schedule with vague deadlines and that's the system that works best for me - but it also means it's hard to tell when something new will be out UNLESS I'm working on an edit right then and there. (For example: Once I start editing The Torn Planet I can be certain it'll be done in about two weeks. This also means the publishing schedule - taking account as well the time it will take my cover artists to create a cover - will be about fixed.)

As another effect of this re-structuring of the blog I'll also be cutting out a lot of the filler and make this a Busy Bee's Writing Blog (because who the heck has time to read through 2k words of blabla before the blogger gets to the point?). This means I'll stop wasting words just to make the blog post long enough to 'count' (in whatever arbitrary fashion). Instead the posts will be concise and details can always be added later should any of them come up - just like editing any book!

Today we'll start with a post on How you can know if you're good at the writing process. It should be up by day's end so check back here soon or follow me on Twitter (@jasmingelinck) or subscribe to my e-mail list (on the right-side sidebar) to receive direct and immediate updates!

WriteBot.