Final Review: Bird by Bird

After much delay I finished reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. The full title of the book is actually Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life and, true to the title, in the final chapters of the book Lamott discusses both writing and how to cope with life.

This partial list of chapter titles and quotes from those chapters provide some glimpses into Lamott's wisdom on the subject of writing:

Looking Around - " Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding meaning therein."

Jealousy - "Jealousy is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you've been able to muster.  But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry un-deserving writers you know..."

Calling Around - "There are an enormous number of people out there with invaluable information to share with you, and all you have to do is pick up the phone."

Writing Groups - "...an occupational hazard of writing is that you'll have bad days. You feel not totally alone but also that everyone else is at a party. But if you talk to other people who write, you remember that this feeling is part of the process, that it's inevitable."

But for all the great writing advice Lamott has to offer, in the end  it was her thoughts on life that had the most impact on me. I leave you with one passage I found particularly profound:

"I remind myself nearly every day of something a doctor told me six months before my friend Pammy died. This was a doctor who always game me straight answers. When I called on this one particular night, I was hoping she could put a positive slant on some distressing developments. She couldn't, but she said something that changed by life. "Watch her carefully right now," she said, " because she's teaching you how to live." 

I remind myself of this when I cannot get any work done: to live as if I am dying, because the truth is we are all terminal on the bus. To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence."

Anatomy of a Monster

As it is nearing Halloween, I thought it might be a good time to share about a race of monsters that play a role in Spacemouse 9. As I mentioned in my appendix entry on the Manta System, the home world of Spacemouse 9 was once devastated by a horde of alien invaders. These invaders are referred to by the Rothi as the "Kiltrexx". I have never drawn a Kiltrexx, but in my imagination they are something like a conglomeration of the five Earthly creatures pictured above. I don't want to give away too much before the release of my book, so I will leave you to ponder exactly how the individual characteristics of these animals might come together to form a Kiltrexx. ;)

While you are pondering, I will leave you with two Fantasy passages about monsters that have stuck with me since my childhood and may very well serve as unconscious inspiration when I write about the Kiltrexx. Both passages are about enormous spiders!

Burroughs, Barsoom and Spacemouse 9

A while back, I watched Disney's John Carter. The movie got me thinking about Science Fantasy literature and how Spacemouse 9 fits within the genre. John Carter is based on Edgar Rice Burrough's 1912 serialized pulp magazine story "Under the Moons of Mars". In 1917, the serial was collected and published as the novel A Princess of Mars. The story line of A Princess of Mars follows the exploits of Civil War veteran John Carter after he is mysteriously transported to the planet Barsoom (Burroughs name for Mars). Many consider A Princess of Mars to be one of the earliest Science Fantasy novels.

I have a dim memory of reading one of Burrough's John Carter novels when I was young, but not remembering many details, I decided to download a free copy of A Princess of Mars and reintroduce myself to the world of Barsoom. Right away I noticed several unintentional similarities between the book and Spacemouse 9:

1996 Spacemouse 9 Patrol Ship Sketches

Here are some thumbnail sketches I did in 1996. They were an attempt to visualize Spacemouse 9's patrol ship. The top sketch shows the view from within the cockpit. The bottom sketch shows inside the cargo hold. Unintentionally, the exterior of the ship ended up looking like a cross between a 1950's rocket ship, a space shuttle, and a commercial airliner. While I like certain retro elements of the design,  in recent months I have come to feel it needs a more "alien" look. After all, Spacemouse 9 is from another planet, not Earth. My goal is to revise the design of the ship in the future.

Bird by Bird Review - Part 2

In Part 1 of my review of Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott I relayed a bit of her wisdom on overcoming the negative emotions that so often plague writers. Another subject in Lamott's book that stood out to me is the necessity of having honest, passionate beliefs at the core of one's writing. Here is a sample of her thoughts on the subject:

"If you find that you start a number of stories or pieces that you don't ever bother finishing, that you lose interest or faith in them along the way, it may be that there is nothing at their center about which you care passionately. You need to put yourself at their center, you and what you believe to be true or right...

...you have to believe in your position, or nothing will be driving your work. If you don't believe in what you are saying, there is no point in saying it. You might as well call it a day and go bowling."

Lamott's words echo what I read years ago in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. McCloud, if I remember correctly, said something to the effect that a comic book artist may have all the technical ability in the world, but if he doesn't have a story to tell (a purpose, a message, a passion) then he will not be able to achieve success. Both Lamott's and McCloud's statements cause me to search my soul, especially in light of my decreased activity here (have you noticed I haven't been posting as much?) Still, I believe I have passion in my heart for the Spacemouse 9 project despite my snail's pace. Lamott's advice is helpful, but perhaps more research on self-motivation for writers would spur me to speed up production.

Bird by Bird Review - Part 1

It has been a hectic month, but I did manage to begin reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. The title of the book comes from an incident in Lamott's childhood in which her older brother, trying to get a report on birds written for school, was advised by Lamott's father: "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." Lamott's advice to writers echos that of her father. She recommends tackling writing projects one small piece at a time as the best way to overcome the emotions that hinder writers from producing.

To illustrate, here is a sample of her advice:

"The first useful concept is the idea of short assignments.  Often when you sit down to write, what you have in mind is an autobiographical novel... or a play about the immigrant experience... But this is like trying to scale a glacier.  It's hard to get your footing... Then your mental illnesses arrive at the desk like your sickest most secretive relatives. ...as the panic mounts and the jungle drums begin beating and I realize the well has run dry  ...I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put on my desk to remind me of short assignments. It reminds me that all I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being." 

I think that is great advice, at least for me personally. It is so easy to become stagnant in the face of self-doubt and the enormity of the writing task at hand.

Look for more about Bird by Bird in coming days...

ePublishing: Where to Begin?

When I decided to write a book, by necessity I had to start thinking about publishing. My thoughts lately have turned to the subject of self-publishing.  There are two routes one can go these days: traditional publishing and electronic publishing. The wisdom on the Internet at present is that self-published newbie writers have a better chance of selling books if they go exclusively with ePublishing.  The reasoning behind this is based on the belief that the public is more willing to pay $0.99 to download an e-book by an unknown author than they are to pay $7.99 for a hardback or paperback of the same book. Knowing my own book buying behavior, such wisdom is hard to dispute. 

So I came to the conclusion that ePublishing was the best route for me to go for self-publishing. But where to begin? My research reveals that two of the biggest e-book publishers are Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords.  Each of these ePublishers has their strong points. Smashwords offers a detailed "style guide" that is very useful in preparing documents for painless translation into e-books while Kindle has a wider distribution network. Still, which is the better choice? Writer Brian S. Pratt advocates uploading your e-book to Smashwords first for the formatting advantages, then posting the formatted document to Kindle as well to take advantage of the wider distribution. Sounds like a good plan to me. I may just give it a shot when the time comes. More on this subject another time...

Reading List Addition

A friend of mine who is a writer highly recommends the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. She says it is one of the best books she has read on the ups and downs of becoming a writer. Last week I obtained a copy for myself. I hope to read it soon. In advance, I read some reviews of the book. One reviewer had this to say:

"I used to write and then I took some time away from it, and someone suggested this book to me to inspire me. It did exactly the opposite. Lamott makes writing sound like passing a kidney stone..." 

On a more positive note, another reviewer said:

"This may be the single best book I have ever read in my entire life. It is helping me get my work done, on a daily basis; it helped me see where I do fit in life (my niche); and it helped me see how utterly not alone I am. It's a wonderful thing."

Here's hoping my read falls in line with the second reviewer and not the first. ;) The image above is art by M. C. Escher, Sun and Moon, 1948.

Appendix Entry: Rothi-En

Rothi-En, the homeworld of the Rothi, is a moon which orbits the planet Manta. Rothi-En has a diameter of 658 miles (1059 km). By comparison, the Earth's Moon has a diameter of 2,160 miles (3,476 km) while the largest known asteroid in the solar system is 592 miles (952 km) across. From space, the Rothi Moon appears emerald green due to the vegetation which covers its land masses. One third of the moon is covered by water and substantial amounts of water also exist below the surface. Rolling grasslands predominate the central latitudes of Rothi-En. In the southern latitudes tropical forests are common, while in the north are mountainous regions encircling a large polar ice cap.

Sources of Inspiration

When I first began drawing Spacemouse 9, several characters served as inspiration for the design of his space suit. From Star Wars' stormtroopers I took the idea of a  suit built of a white plastic-like armor. From the video game character Megaman I took the idea of bulky boots which contain jet thrusters (in other drawings of Spacemouse the boots became much larger than the early drawing shown here). Finally, from Major Matt Mason toys I took the idea of a space suit with flexible rubber joints.

Appendix Entry: The Manta System

The homeworld of the Rothi is a moon which in their language is called Rothi-En.  Rothi-En orbits Manta, a mysterious, cloud enshrouded planet.  Encircling Manta in the same orbit as the Rothi moon is an expansive ring of asteroids. Rothi scientists theorize these asteroids may be the remains of a second moon which was destroyed by some cataclysmic event in ancient times.

Two thousand years before the time of Spacemouse 9, a previously unknown horde of alien invaders emerged from the asteroids and ravaged the moon. Thousands of Rothi were killed. To protect against future invasions, the Rothi initiated space patrols of the asteroid ring. For the purpose of organizing the patrols the ring was divided into ten sectors.  The distant half of the ring is beyond the range of the average Rothi spacecraft and is therefore largely unexplored. The most heavily patrolled sector is Sector 1 in which is located the Rothi moon.  The further a sector is located from Rothi-En, the fewer patrols it is assigned. Sectors 8 and 9 are the most distant. Spacemouse 9 is the sole member of the Spacemouse Corps assigned to patrol Sector 9.

For information on the numerical symbols shown on the map, see Numeral System of the Rothi.

King, Strunk, and White

Following the advice of Stephen King, I read Strunk and White’s Elements of Style this week.  I expected an exhaustive work on the technical aspects of writing, but at 26 pages the writing guide only scratches the surface of the subject.  The book consists of a mere 18 rules of usage and composition followed by three sections which cover common grammar mistakes.

Reading Elements of Style brings into focus the influence the book has on Stephen King. The following quotes from Elements closely correspond to what King advocates in his own book on writing:

“The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative principally concerned with action, but in writing of any kind.”

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

While I found the information in Elements of Style useful, I think following its guidelines to the letter would tend to result in a somewhat dry writing style. Then again, Stephen King, great advocate of the book, has a writing style that is anything but dry. Does he bend the rules a bit perhaps? ;)

2003 Spacemouse 9 Storyboard

Life was incredibly busy at the beginning of March and I missed my goal of posting here a least once a week. Things are more free now, so hopefully I can devote time again to Spacemouse 9. Here are some more of my past sketches. These are the first four panels of a storyboard sequence of nine panels I did in 2003. I am a little embarrassed to share these since they are quick sketches and not what I consider my best work. Still, here can be seen one of the many variations I experimented with trying to find the right look for Spacemouse 9's spacesuit. Previously, I posted a 1997 sketch of our hero without his helmet.

More About Storybook Software

After playing around more with the open source "novel writing" software, Storybook, I  unfortunately found that the features that interest me the most are only available in "Storybook Pro", the non-free version of the program. Such features include a "gantt chart of characters" (creates time lines of characters lives) and the ability to export information out of the program in formats such as TXT and PDF. At first I thought Storybook was intended only as a tool to organize plot information, but the creators of the program proclaim on their website that Storybook "can be used as a replacement for a word processor". While that may be true, I think the way the program "compartmentalizes" the story information would somewhat mitigate against a writing style that flows.  Still, Storybook may have its uses. I think I will keep it around for a while longer. ;)

Free Novel Writing Software

Recently, I became aware of a free novel writing program called "Storybook". Storybook is billed as an "open source novel-writing tool for creative writers, novelists and authors which will help you to keep an overview of multiple plot-lines while writing books, novels or other written works." I am intrigued by the idea. Pictured above is a screen shot of the program. Once information such as characters, dates, locations, etc. are entered into the program, the information may be viewed in four different ways:

• Chronological View - shows the scenes sorted by date. Each strand has it's own column.
• Manage Chapters and Scenes View - shows all chapters and their assigned scenes.
• Book View - shows all chapters and their assigned scenes sorted by chapter and scene numbers, as you would read it in the final book. (Book View is show in the image above.)
• Reading View (a mode of the Book View) shows the text as in a final book. 

I think software like this would be very helpful for stories with complex plots and lots of characters. Once I am able to give the program a test run I will post a more detailed review. But great as the software sounds, there is a nagging thought in the back of my mind: "What would Stephen King think of this?" ^^

Update: Read a further review of this product here.

Early Spacemouse 9 Sketch

I thought it was about time I showed everyone what the protagonist of Spacemouse 9 looks like. This is a rough pencil sketch I did in 1997. Back then I referred to the little guy as just "Spacemouse", but as you can see, even then the Rothi symbol for the number nine was emblazoned on his chest. The truth of the matter is that in 1997 the circle and slash symbol wasn't meant to be a nine. It  was supposed to be some type of military insignia. In recent years when I decided to call the character "Spacemouse 9", I worked backwards to create a logical numbering system where the symbol would become the number nine. In coming months I hope to share more early Spacemouse 9 artwork as I get it scanned and cleaned up in Photoshop. My goal is to use my early  artwork as a starting point to create better, more refined art to include in the book.

Thoughts on the Monomyth

A while back I started reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I am not sure if I will finish the book or not. First off, it is a dry read (think college history textbook). Second, after reading Stephen King's opinion that good fiction almost never proceeds from theme to story, I have come to the conclusion that it would be a bad idea to write my story with Campbell's "monomyth" in mind. I like this quote by author Neil Gaimon on the subject:

"I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true — I don’t want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it’s true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."

So odds are I won't finish The Hero with a a Thousand Faces. The image above is a cartoon illustration by Austin Kleon of themes found in the writings of Joseph Campbell.

A Chapter Book?

Recently, a friend of mine asked me if the book I was writing was a "chapter book". I replied "yes", but the more I thought about it, the more I began to doubt my answer. In a previous post,  I relayed how I came to the conclusion that "Middle-grade" was the appropriate category for my book. But is MG a subset of  a broad "Chapter Book" category or is "Chapter Book" a category unto itself? An initial Internet search only brought more confusion. The New York Times Best Sellers list has a division called "Chapter Books" which includes everything from Lego books (ages 7 and up) to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series (which is considered by many to be Young Adult in the tradition of Harry Potter). Finally, under a Children's Fiction genre definition at findmeanauthor.com, I found definitions I was satisfied with:

Chapter books - "For ages 7-10, Chapter books are transitional books that help children move from early readers to full novels. Most chapter books deal with contemporary situations that are familiar to the readers, and are often humorous books."

Middle-Grade Novels - "This is the golden age of reading for many children, ages 8-12. A novel, unlike the picture book, relies entirely on text to tell the story. Kids get hooked on characters at this age. Fiction genres range from contemporary to historical to science fiction/fantasy."

Spacemouse 9 fits better in the MG Novel category. So, the next time someone asks me if I am writing a chapter book I will say "No, I am writing a Middle-grade novel". ;)

Ray Bradbury on Writing

Over the holidays I managed to finish reading Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing. The book consists of  a series of essays which originally appeared in other publications. Having just read Stephen King's On Writing, I was struck by the fact that both Bradbury and King have strong beliefs about how stories "write themselves", flowing naturally out of character development. Here are some quotes by Bradbury on the subject:

"Find a character, like yourself, who will want something or not want something, with all his heart. Give him running orders. Shoot him off. Then follow as fast as you can go.  The character, in his great love, or hate, will rush you through to the end of the story."

"The time will come when your characters will write your stories for you, when your emotions, free of literary cant and commercial bias, will blast the page and tell the truth."

Compare Bradbury's quotes with Stephen King's quotes here.

Also like King, Bradbury wrote of the insecurity from which writers often suffer:

"We all need someone higher, wiser, older to tell us we're not crazy after all, that what we're doing is all right... But it is easy to doubt yourself, because you look around at a community of notions held by others writers, other intellectuals, and they make you blush with guilt."

Given the fact that two established authors have had much the same experiences, there must be some real nuggets of truth in what they are saying. Wide eyed, I am listening. :)

The Ray Bradbury portrait above is by Pixar artist Lou Romano for the cover of Written By magazine.

Appendix Entry: Rothi Numeral System

The numbering system used by the Rothi has as its basis the number four.  For the Rothi, the significance of the number four comes understandably from the fact they have four fingers on each hand. The Rothi numeral system has similarities to the system developed by the ancient Roman Empire on Earth. First, neither system has a symbol for zero. Secondly, both systems are additive.  For example, the Rothi symbol for the number ten is a combination of the symbols for the number two and the number eight (2 + 8 = 10). The symbol for the number sixteen might be seen either as a combination of the symbols for twelve and four or a combination of two fours and an eight. The spacesuit and spacecraft of Spacemouse 9 are imprinted with a circle and slash, which to the Rothi, represent the number nine.