Category: Journal

In martial arts there is a saying: “you can live or die by anything.” It means there is no single principal or movement that is guaranteed to save you. For example, it’s good to breathe, essential for survival, but if you try it underwater you will have serious problems.

It’s not surprising to find that this is true for writing as well. Writers find all kinds of ways to keep up their momentum, but all these methods are only good as long as they help you get the work done. If they stop being useful you must be ready to adapt.

Previously I’ve written about how I use word count goals to help keep my productivity up. Today, however, I spent a lot of time working on a new way to track my word count instead of actually writing words. Something that once worked as a motivator was suddenly a distraction.

I spent a good portion of the day essentially procrastinating. Finally I had to throw all thoughts of it aside, stop worrying about the damn word count, and just get some work done. The moment is what matters.

Liz Engstrom‘s science fiction story weekend at siltcoos station was a lot of fun and a real whirlwind of creativity. I met a bunch of fantastic writers, made new friends, and got to hear some great new stories.

I stayed up until 3am Friday night writing my story, “One Breath and the Deep.” At 3:30 I saw six meteors streak overhead and went out on the long dock in the dark, where something was splashing around in the water, probably fish, but kind of spooky in the mist and silence.

Saturday morning I took a long walk down the train tracks and saw the trestle bridge from the movie “Stand by Me.” I walked part of the way out onto it. Luckily a boat came instead of a train, but nevertheless it was time to head back. Breakfast sounded so much more appealing than finding a dead body.

I reviewed my story twice in the morning. In the afternoon I took a nap, made two illustrations, and fleshed out an idea for a horror story that’s been knocking around in the back of my mind. People worked all through the day and Saturday night we read the stories. What a treat! We heard a whole anthology of wonderful science fiction in one evening. It was such a joy to be around so many writers and hear what they had done in the last 24 hours, really great stuff.

I’m already looking forward to the next one.

I’ll soon be heading to a science fiction writing workshop on the coast with Elizabeth Engstrom, the author of When Darkness Loves Us and The Northwoods Chronicles. The pre-workshop meeting focused on conceptions of science fiction, ideas for world building, and meeting a great group of writers I’ll be spending the weekend with. We’ll all be drafting short stories in a 24 hour period.

At the meeting Engstrom emphasized Theodore Sturgeon’s definition of a good science fiction story as “a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened without its science content.” She also talked about two distinct strategies for world building, top-down and bottom-up. As you might imagine, a top-down approach starts with creating a general overall picture of a world, while a bottom-up approach starts with a focus on a few detailed elements needed for a story.

Autographed copies of Engstrom’s latest books are available on her website, as well as writing tips, upcoming seminars, and a link to her blog, “One Writer’s World.”

It’s almost time for my July writing intensive and I’m gearing up to get a big chunk of my new book written. Last summer I wrote 32,000 words in July and finished the first draft of Journey to Elara. This summer I will be pounding out a big part of book 2: Dark Mage of Midgard, with the goal of having a first draft by Christmas.

So far so good. I did 800 words on Thursday, a 1000 yesterday and today, and I’m looking forward to another good day tomorrow. The story is going great so far, so I’m looking forward to an exciting summer. Come July 1st I’ll really be pouring on the steam.

I do a fair amount of general research on all kinds of things from vulcanism to piano tuning, and I use the internet a lot. Google image search and Wikipedia are awesome for getting up to speed on all kind of topics. But the internet isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be. Information on almost any subject can be found, but it’s not always easy to locate nor very well organized.

I recently spent a whole day researching 16th and 17th century sailing ships. There were a lot things I wanted, including exterior and interior photographs, layout diagrams, history, as well as technical details and terminology. I spent a lot of time searching all over the internet finding bits and pieces. At the end of the day I took a trip to the bookstore and bought a ten dollar coffee table book on ships that included almost everything I was looking for and was much more satisfying to page through.

The advantage of books are many. Primarily, somebody has already gone through all the trouble of gathering the information and photos, organizing it, and presenting it in a way that’s easy to digest. All this means one can spend more time absorbing information and less time looking for it. Don’t get me wrong, the internet is still cracked up to be a lot, and has its own advantages, like immediate accessability and searchability. For some obscure topics it’s indespensable. But there are times when a trip to the local bookstore or library may get more done with a less hassle.

What a relief! All the files from my crashed hard drive were recovered and I have gotten them back on an external hard drive and backed them up twice. I still have to get my primary computer fixed, but now at least I can get back to the work of writing without having to worry about the lost chapters.

I am grateful to the people who recovered my data. They are heroes. But no explanation was ever given as to what might have happened to my hard drive. In the end I can only conclude that it was the victim of some evil magic.

I narrowly escaped disaster, but at a great monetary cost. If you have important files that you would pay to get back, or that would just be a major inconvenience to lose, save yourself the trouble and money and make regular backups. With computers the chances are good that sooner or later some evil magic will strike and trust me, you’ll be a lot happier (and wealthier) if you have a current backup.

The saga of the lost chapters continues. My computer hard drive, which suddenly ceased all vital functions several days ago, has been sent to a data retrieval center. I received a call today which I hoped would bring news that my files had been recovered. Instead, I found out that my drive needs to be moved up to Level 3. Apparently whatever they do at Level 1 and Level 2 were not sufficient to retrieve my data.

So now my disk and lost chapter are on their way to Level 3, where I believe they will dismantle the hard drive in a clean room in order to retrieve the data in some other non-specified manner. The time frame for Level 3 is two weeks. It is going to cost the maximum amount, but if all goes well, I will get my chapters.

I am holding out hope. Almost everybody I’ve talked to says that short of catastrophic physical damage it should be possible to retrieve the data. One friend cited a case where the drive had been in a fire and they still retrieved the data. And did you know that Department of Defense only considers data non-retrievable after a hard disk has been completely reformatted seven times. Seven times.

Yes, there is still hope.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I messed up. I made a mistake. I hadn’t backed up critical files in about a month. But I’ve had a new computer since August and it’s been working like a charm. I guess I got complacent. My work was going so smoothly I just didn’t think, but you should never trust a computer. One minute they work wonders, and the next, they’re no better than box full of junk.

My computer was working fine earlier in the day, but when I turned it on that night, suddenly I saw the fabled blue screen of death. Actually it was the HP splash screen, but it was blue and certainly signaled a serious problem since it wasn’t going away no matter what I did. My first concern was getting a backup of my recent work. I took the computer to the computer doctor, who called me later to say he was unable to retrieve the files using conventional methods. This was serious.

I’m shattered by the prospect of losing a few chapters, some great scenes, and a month’s worth of work, not to mention countless other files. My stomach is ill with the thought of it.  The hard drive must now be sent to a specialist. It is now on the way to the data recovery center where they assure me there is a very high probability that my files will be saved. Unfortunately it is going cost a lot of money. (You don’t even want to know how much. Just back up your files.)

If I get my work back I’ll be happy, no matter the cost. However, it could be a nervous couple weeks before I know. One of the most frustrating things about computers is that when they fail to work it seems totally random. I know a thing or two but in a case like this I am helpless. I just have to trust the specialists. I have little idea exactly how they are going to get my files back, but until I have them safely back in my hands, I will be praying for the recovery of lost chapters.

If you’ve ever tried to write anything with a complex plot, you can probably relate to the struggle of figuring out how to make everything fit together like magic. If you haven’t, I assure you it can be quite perplexing and laborious. It can also be wonderful, like when you finally figure out that troubling section, and chapters that you dreaded facing suddenly become ones you can’t wait to write.

Hammering out a story’s plot can feel a bit like chipping away an iceberg with a spoon. But if you just keep chipping, you do make progress, and it pays to persevere. It may take hours of research and reading, sitting in the bathtub, staring out the window, and weird dreams in the half-sleep of afternoon naps, but if you keep at it things that seemed impossible to grasp, starts to take shape.

No matter how much serious staring out the window you do though, sometimes you will run into a wall, some part of your story that you can’t quite see yet. In that case, I’ve found the best thing to do is to just continue working on some other aspect of the story. It may seem like that wall will never crumble, but things will change. Sudeenly an idea will come to you that will make the everything clear, and you will wonder why you were ever worried. It seems like magic when it happens.

Matthew Lowes is concerned that the internet is becoming ever more interconnected. I can update my Facebook page with my Twitter account, which also can post widgets to my WordPress Blog, which can post Notes to my Facebook page, which can also stream my Youtube clips and my Flickr photos. Luckily, each of these will send me emails to my Gmail so I know what the hell is going on when other people are posting to my Facebook/Twitter/Wordpress accounts. And thank goodness that when I’m away from the computer I am able to stay in the game using SMS short codes, G3, and wifi.

I am a little concerned though. It’s almost like this internet thing is becoming totally interconnected. Everything is like connected to everything else. It’s becoming one big giant network. It’s almost like somebody designed it that way, like a giant spider web, a global, world-wide web. I know, it’s a little scary when you stop to think about it. The day may come soon when my Twitter will update my Facebook will update my WordPress will update my Gmail, which will then send an automated response to update my Twitter. My accounts won’t even need me any more. I’ll be obsolete.