Getting Somewhere

A Throwback Writing Article

This was originally published at the Mad Genius Club on June 18, 2016. I’m still not certain where I’m going with all of this, but just like then, everything is grist for the writing mill. I was doing fine with the lesson and had graduated to driving on the roads when the car broke down. Despite many reassurances that no, it wasn’t my fault, I never did drive it again! And the story I reference in this post was published not too long afterwards as Tanager’s Fledglings, I’m currently hard at work on the third book in that trilogy, due out at the end of this month.

I’m not sure where, mind you, but I’m getting somewhere.

It’s not so much the writing, which has been painfully slow. I’m not complaining about that. I’ve been writing, and that’s better than not-writing. And it’s not transportation, since I haven’t gone anywhere... although I’m getting driving lessons today. Yes, I do know how to drive. But I can’t drive a stick, so a friend and former truck driver is giving me lessons on it. Yesterday I was flattered because he’d told my husband ‘Cedar picks stuff up so quick, I’ll bet she only needs an hour for the basics.” This morning, pre-coffee, with lessons in an hour, I’m pretty sure I’m going to screw this up.

Not that I’m not going to do it - I need to learn this skill. Along with many others in my life, it’s an important one. Why? Well, in my case it’s because my husband’s car is a manual, so if I need to drive it I have to learn how. In the past? I’ve picked up skills as I needed, things like making websites and graphic design, because I couldn’t afford to pay someone to do them, and they needed to be done. I might not have always done the best job when I started, but if you’re persistent...

That’s what this post is about, really. Persistence. Not giving up. When you’re writing, if you ever want to hold a book in your hands, you can’t give up on it. You have to keep plugging away at the writing part until the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Then you have to worry about the editing, and... so on and so forth.

In your story, your character has to have persistence, too. My friend just walked in, and as promised, coffee was the first thing. Are all truck drivers massive coffee drinkers? Must research - pertinent to the story in progress about a star traveling trader ship. Anyway, I grabbed the first cup at hand in the cupboard, and then started laughing as I handed at him. “I’m sorry...” he looked at it and busted up, too. That cup was a gift to me and it reads ‘Self-Rescuing Princess.’ But if you think about it - no, not the image of a big burly bearded bald man sipping from over that slogan - then you’ll realize that it’s a fun way to start off in a story. What if the princess doesn’t need rescuing? It’s something Dave Freer did recently in Tom, although it wasn’t the central conceit of the story.

And I’m wandering all over the road this morning. Sorry, I still haven’t picked up my coffee, although I can. and now I have. Takes a while to hit the bloodstream, though. Oh! which reminds me. I was watching some TV while doing data entry (data entry is boring) and on the show they injected something (never said what) and the person went down as soon as the needle went in. Um, no, that isn’t how it works. While I can sort of see the justification on television, for the story not to lag while they waited for the person to collapse (and even that could have been written in for more action and tension) in a book it’s inexcusable. Taking the time to understand circulation and uptake - and especially the blood brain barrier a drug would have to cross - is important.

Which reminds me that recently I’d gotten into an argument online. I didn’t mean to - I really try to avoid them because they are mostly a waste of my time and energy and spike my blood pressure for no reason at all. The premise of the argument revolved around werewolf reproduction. Which in and of itself is a fun rabbit trail for an author to wander down. The OP had wondered if that meant that menstruation and the moon might not align and female werewolves would thus have two times of the month. Which, I gotta admit, is both funny and horrifying. But the post that set me off was talking about human reproduction and showed it very clearly that the person writing didn’t even have an elementary grasp of biology. No, sorry, a fetus is not a parasite. Look, reproduction is one of the most basic biological urges. The woman’s body is (mostly, and there are rare cases that aren’t) trying their best to hold onto a developing child. So speculation of werewolves and pregnancy does indeed get interesting. Frankly, I find that the common author’s trick of ‘oh, female werewolves just miscarry when they shift forms and they have to shift at the full moon...’ a lazy author trick.

Look, I realize that it limits the werewolf population if you make it near impossible for them to reproduce. And in theory, this keeps them from overrunning humanity. I think that biology wins, and there has to be a better way to write the limitations - but that probably involves deep genetics, and from a person who believes that her own child is a parasite, that’s probably not going to happen.

However, I am going to chug my coffee and go take driving lessons. And then think about how to apply them to my writing. Because that’s what I do with nearly everything.

I’m getting somewhere. Don’t know where, yet. I’ll let you know when I’ve arrived.