Category: Journal

The SFTE believes strongly that the default settings on all electronic devices and software should be free text, with no auto-inserted graphics. Automatically inserted graphics inherently diminish the free and creative use of text. Unfortunately, this is less and less the case as companies and programmers attempt to wow us with flashy, unnecessary, and often unwanted features. %(

The SFTE encourages all software developers to return control to the people and set free text as the default on our devices and applications. Sadly, some application do not even allow free text as an option, essentially censoring our free speech and dictating the use of emoticons. There may yet come a day when it is impossible to type :) even when colon end-parentheses is what your heart truly feels.

The people should be aware, however, that in many cases we still have a choice. It is a choice that is our duty to exercise, a choice for freedom and the right of self expression, over the tyranny of auto-inserted graphics. It may take some time to find the options switch on your cell phone or computer application that will deactivate auto-inserted graphics, but history will look back and remember the sacrifices you make in the name of liberty and freedom. *=*

:@ “Join the SFTE on Facebook Groups.”

A terrible thing is happening to the emoticons of the world. They are slowly being replaced by auto-inserted graphics. This tragic loss of free text emoticons has come on so slowly that many have not noticed. Some even applaud this travesty, dazzled by flashy colors that seem to magically appear, and inserting these impostors willy nilly from drop down menus. ;(

But what is being lost? And at what cost are we replacing the free creative expression of plain text emoticons? What once belonged to the hearts and minds of the people is now being handed over to automated systems, global corporations, overzealous programmers and misguided graphic artists. Is this who you want standing between you and your emotional freedom? $,$

The Society for Free Text Emoticons is saddened by every plain text expression that is transformed without consent. The society advocates for the creative and free use of plain text expressions. Although the society does not reject graphical expressions unilaterally, it does maintain a stalwart preference for the preservation and use of free text emoticons. o_o

:@ “Don’t abandon us.”

Genre is a sticky subject, and suffice it to say that the way we categorize fiction is somewhat arbitrary and somewhat inevitable. If you think about it though, fantasy is the root of all fiction. Long before people began to write books, they huddled around the light of fires, under starry skies, in deep forests, or in the shelter of caves to tell their stories, and the impulse of fiction was already there in the myths and legends that were born among them.

There is an element of fantasy in all fiction. Modern stories are born from that same original impulse, to weave tales, to entertain and educate, and to find meaning in the world, and in the often extraordinary experiences of our lives. The best of the Fantasy genre can be directly traced back to the mythic structures that started it all, stories woven from the threads of an ancient dream. But fantasy is a kind of meta-genre in which fiction lives, and breathes, and is created anew.

I don’t usually write book reviews, but a title review is another matter, and A Darkness Forged in Fire is perhaps one of the best titles ever. I haven’t read this debut book by Chris Evans yet, but I’ve spent days walking around with this title in my head. I say it over and over to myself, just marveling at the sound of these words together, and the feeling they conjure up.

If you’ve ever wondered what makes a great title, just think about A Darkness Forged in Fire. You may not come to any definite conclusions though, no rule or magic formula. There is always an element of mystery, of wonder, when it comes to great books, great stories, and yes, great titles. In this case, there is real poetry there, and the words seem to resonate with some mythic archetype deep within the primal psyche.

You can read about Chris Evans and A Darkness Forged in Fire at www.ironelves.com.

There are a number of really great things about movies that make them particularly useful and fun to study. For one thing, you can experience an entire film in about two hours, beginning to end. In four hours, you can watch it twice. Because of this films are great for studying basic narrative structure, and offer valuable insights into how to create effective beginnings, middles and ends in any type of story.

Movies are by necessity based on action and dialogue. They present a story in scenes, and you get to know the characters through the things that they do and say. This is all great stuff to do in fiction. How many times have budding writers been told it is better to show than to tell? Understanding how film-makers do this can give you a new perspective, and help you understand how to do it in your own work.

Finally, with dvd commentaries by writers, directors and actors, there is a wealth of first hand story telling experience to draw on. When you find a great film with really good commentaries it’s like attending a fantastic lecture on the creative process. Writers talk about the evolution of various drafts. Directors talk about the difficulties they encountered, their understanding of the story, the pains and triumphs of editing, and so many other valuable things.

The Russians have a saying: if you stranded at sea in a rowboat of course you should pray to God, but don’t stop rowing. There are a lot of misconceptions about this wonderful muse who gives inspiration to creative people and sends them running to their desks to joyfully turn blank pages into beautiful prose. Don’t get me wrong; there is a muse, but she usually doesn’t show up until you’ve dragged yourself to your desk, against all odds, and started to work. Then maybe, sometimes, she comes to help. If not, you just keep at it, sometimes worried that it’s all a useless effort, but no matter what happens you keep at it.

People have tried different things to this end. Some write for a set amount of time each day, or write for a set period of time. Some write a chapter a day, or a certain number of pages or a certain number of words. Robert E. Howard used to imagine that Conan was standing behind him ready to lop off his head if he didn’t keep writing. Whatever works. For me, the primary tool is target word count.

I try to set a tough but reasonable goal depending on my schedule. For a while it was 2000 words per week. Currently it is 1000 words per day. The nice thing about writing every day like this is the continuity and momentum that drives you along and makes the work easier. Some days I don’t finish those 1000 words until 9pm, or I write them half asleep in the chair, but I get them done. On the best days I’m done before lunch. I have better luck if writing is the first thing I do. I wake, I eat breakfast, then write. If I get distracted anywhere along the line, it can very easily turn into a long day.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that you need inspiration to begin, or a clean desk, or a full night’s rest, or just the right pen, but find out what works for you. All you need is to just start and keep at it. It’s so simple, so beautiful, and often so damn difficult. But if you do it you will accomplish something. And sometimes, often when it seems least likely, the muse will come and bless you.

What are some of your favorite books? The question always seems to come up when I tell people I am a writer. Usually I mumble something or other and try to steer the conversation elsewhere. It’s very hard to think of these things on the spot, mainly because there are too many for a concise answer to be complete. But to put the matter to rest, I’ve put together a list here for anyone who might be interested.

Please note that the list is not at all scientific. I just thought about it for a while and wrote down what came to mind. The list doesn’t include random collections of short stories or poetry so a few of my favorite authors are not represented. And it doesn’t include non-fiction, although a few may be considered memoir.

Each of these books has stuck in my mind for one reason or another. Some are beautifully written, others are simply impossible to put down. Some are triumphs of the imagination or the intellect. Some are heartbreaking; some are mind-blowing. And some just struck a chord and have remained in my thoughts, worthy of remembrance.

So here they are, a few of my favorite books:

Narrow Road to the Interior – Basho
The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
Middlemarch – George Elliot
Mona Lisa Overdrive – William Gibson
The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
Victoria – Knut Hamsun
Beowulf – tr. Seamus Heaney
The Sun also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
Dune – Frank Herbert
Mythago Wood – Robert Holdstock
Against Nature – J.K. Huysmans
Snow Country – Yasunari Kawabata
West with the Night – Beryl Markham
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind – Hayao Miyazaki
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Haruki Murakami
Akira – Katsuhiro Otomo
Gateway – Frederik Pohl
The Prestige – Christopher Priest
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Holy Fire – Bruce Sterling
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Perfume – Patrick Suskind
The Mosquito Coast – Paul Theroux
Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Aeneid – Virgil
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
Night – Elie Wiesel

Yesterday while running errands, I remembered a story that I forgot I had written. A while back I read about a short story contest somewhere with the topic of “alien witchcraft.” Well that was right up my alley so I set to work on it.

Eventually I had a good idea and I even wrote most of the story if I recall correctly. But as the ways of the world would have it, I never finished. The deadline passed and I got to working on my book and other things. Apparently after that I completely forgot about that story until yesterday.

I’m not sure how it came up, because alien witchcraft isn’t something you usually run across on your day to day errand running. But there it was in my head. This was not a case of thinking of something I wasn’t thinking of a moment ago. I had completely forgotten that I even thought up that story. When I was reminded, it seemed to come out of thin air, as if somebody else had written it.

I was delighted. In part because I remembered it as being not bad, and there being no reason why I wouldn’t go back and finish it. And in part because I felt I had reached some critical mass; I had written enough stories that I couldn’t hold them all in my head any more. Could have been temporary amnesia as well, but at least it was a good story…I think. I won’t know for sure until I find it.

If you are writing a novel and you tell anybody about it, inevitably you will be asked what it’s about. This is a tricky question. If you could really sum your book up in a sentence or two, would you really be writing it? In fact, you may not quite know what it’s really about until you are finished. Nevertheless, people will want an answer, and so will agents and editors if you ever try to sell it.

In fact, you’ll not only need a quick ten second pitch, you also need a detailed written synopsis of the entire book. I’ve spent the last couple days working out a synopsis for Heir to Elara and it hasn’t been easy. First, common wisdom indicates that a synopsis should be written in the present tense which really messes with your head if you spend a lot of time writing stories in the past tense. Second, you have to figure out the most important points to include because many nuances of character and plot will have to be left out.

At first this task seemed like an unfortunate drudgery that could never live up to the content of the book itself. But it forces you to think about your novel in a new way, and after a while I found myself enjoying the challenge of creating a condensed version of the story. The process was very rewarding as well, distilling as it did the essence of the storyline, which is very helpful when approaching a second draft.

I also discovered that if you are not quite finished with your book, this is a great way to iron out an ending. Ideas generally evolve from the general to the specific, and synopsis writing, like outlining, is one possible intermediary step. Of course the best part about it is that you’ll finally be able to tell people what your novel is about.

It was tough to get back to work after having to throw out an entire chapter because it didn’t work. My confidence had been shaken a bit and of course there was no guarantee that the scene I was about to write was going to work either, or even be any good. Did I really know my characters? Did I really know where I was going with this story?

As I said before though, there’s really no cure for this but to dive back into the work. So I sat down and began to write. The first couple of hundred words were difficult. Every sentence was a strain. It was like dragging a heavy log over rough terrain. It was working, but it was hard work. I would stop every few sentences and then force myself to keep going.

Then something happened. Something about a character’s past that I had planned to reveal much later and in a different way suddenly started to come out in the scene. I had not planned it, but because of the situation and the characters involved it just came out. When that happened, everything became easy. It was so obviously right and good that sentence upon sentence just poured out. I entered into that state in which words just flow onto the paper like water gushing through an open dam.

I typed on furiously, caught up in the moment, immersed in the scene as it unfolded. The excitement and the joy of creation built as the scene progressed. I finished with a flurry of keystrokes, as sure of the last words as I was of the first, and rose from my chair in triumph. Did I know the characters? Did I know the story? Yes, I knew these things well. And because of that they could still surprise and delight me. These are the kind of moments that help make it all worth while.