eddvick

I have sleep apnea. That's where you stop breathing every once in a while while sleeping. I got tested, and evidently woke up a truly amazing number of times every hour. There are two types of sleep apnea, central (where something's going wrong in your central nervous system) and obstructive (where there's a problem with the architecture in the back of your mouth that means not enough air gets through).

But enough about sleep apnea. What's this about writing apnea? It may be a case of tempest meeting teapot, but Huffington Post writer Linda Stone noticed that she and co-workers occasionally slowed or stopped breathing while working on email. This can, she found, trigger a fight-or-flight reaction in the body:

The activated sympathetic nervous system causes the liver to dump glucose and cholesterol into our blood, our heart rate to increase, our sense of satiety to be compromised, and our bodies to anticipate and resource for the physical activity that, historically, accompanied a physical fight or flight response. Meanwhile, when the only physical activity is sitting and responding to email, we're sort of "all dressed up with nowhere to go."

If this is the case with email participants, could it be happening with writers, too? We sit all day more caught up in our imaginary worlds than inhabiting the real one. I find myself leaning more to the left, often resting my left elbow on the armrest of my chair. Is that why I'm getting an ache in that elbow?

I get involved while writing battle scenes, too. Almost ducking and weaving with my characters' movements. Does that, too, contribute to this fight-or-flight reaction? Interesting, if so.

Bottom line: to me this looks like the case of a columnist having to have something to talk about. Still, wouldn't hurt to get up and stretch once in a while, maybe concentrate on breathing. Bad posture and obesity all too often go with sitting in front of a keyboard all day.

Via an interview on the always-entertaining CBC podcast Spark.

David Weber posts an insightful essay about what can be gotten away with in fiction. He's right that plenty of bad decisions in real life couldn't be dramatized without the reader losing faith in the story. I'm reminded of Hitler invading Russia. He's determined not to make the same mistakes as Napoleon, who lost so many troops on the retreat from Moscow. Yet what does he do? He overstays, he doesn't have his soldiers issued winter uniforms, he loses almost a quarter of his Eastern Army in the first five months of Operation Barbarossa.

I can, though, think of two possible defenses, places where you can have characters make disastrous mistakes. The first is trivial. When time travel is a part of the story, writers can have their characters go back to correct mistakes. The error exists essentially to be corrected.

Defense number two - well, frankly, it's also of limited use, but it's got a noble heritage. This is for the character to acknowledge that they are acting out of character. The most famous usage of this defense was in Casablanca, where Senor Ferrari (Sidney Greenstreet) says to Laszlo, about the letters of credit:

I observe that in one respect you are a very fortunate man, Monsieur. I am moved to make one more suggestion, why, I do not know, because it cannot possibly profit me, but, have you heard about Signor Ugarte and the letters of credit?

This man, who has been portrayed as unrelentingly greedy, even going so far as to offer to 'buy' Sam from Rick, goes on to volunteer the information that Rick is the man for them to see !

The plot revolves around Laszlo and Ilsa finding out where to get the letters of credit (a silly contrivance, letters that the Nazis would 'have' to honor) so they can get away. Ugarte is dead by this point; there's nobody else to point them in Rick's direction. I like that one of the most-honored movies of all time has this lapse of character not just acknowledged, but touted. So the next time you write yourself into a corner, just pull that deus ex machina out of your butt and have said deus say "I don't know why I'm doing this, it's entirely against my nature, but what the hey, you look like a nice kid".

Does a dollar a word for writing sound good? Then you might want to check out the guidelines for the new anthology coming from W.W. Norton. There is a word limit, though. You'll have to tell a complete story and hint at a larger background in 25 words or less.

Here is a dated but thoroughly delightful article about maintaining continuity in sprawling, multiple-creator-written series.

I'm using my new toy to write this blog entry. MacSpeech is a speech-recognition program that comes with a headset microphone. I've been a little blocked lately writing, so I give it a whirl with telling my stories out loud. Also, it's just plain cool.

Musicians have their own particular constellation of problems, but one thing I've always envied them is that they can sing the same songs over and over. Writers and artists have to come up with something new every time, though a few like John Norman and Brian Jacques do seem to hit the same notes over and over. I suppose a parallel would be the storyteller, who can tell the same stories again and again.

Booklert, to keep you updated on your Amazon standing.

Nowhere have I found an easier way to tell if a document is in the public domain and whether permission is required to quote from it.

Link

Of course they'll only pick ten questions, but still...

So sartorias was referencing nahara, who mentioned a British TV program called The Book Show, where three authors get interviewed, then at the end they're all together asked "What book do you wish you'd written?"

Now Sartorias (aka author Sherwood Smith, who's written some delightful fantasies) parses a few breeds of author:

For example, the writer who wishes to have written might say something like "I wish I'd written Harry Potter, because then I'd have a kabillion dollars, and would never have to work again in my life--or my kids and grandkids."

Then there's the "I wish I'd written Pride and Prejudice because there is no more perfect character than Mr. Darcy" or "I wish I'd written To Kill a Mockingbird because it's a perfect book, and my name would be remembered as long as Chaucer's."

or just, "I wish I'd written X because it's a perfect book."

Isn't it tempting to say The Iliad or something like that? I think, though, I'm leaning toward The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine. Wells invented so many SF tropes, and I still find him readable today.

I find that an interesting question, so I thought I'd throw it out myself. What book do you wish you'd written?

Lifehacker posts a megalist of links to resources for writers. It would be easy to procrastinate and follow up on a lot of them, but I will instead procrastinate and suggest you follow a lot of them.

My lovely and talented wife Amy Thomson got a good interview over at IO9.

I'm a great procrastinator. This look like a good summary of ways to get past being my own worst enemy.

Shorpy is a website that presents old photos, often several a day. Most seem to be from midcentury, though occasionally there's a wonderful older one like the above from the New York to Paris auto race. I haven't used any Shorpy photos yet as background material for my writing, but it's just a matter of time before one of those great old photos showing street scenes from Chicago.

Thing is: nobody who's met Harlan Ellison is neutral toward him. Everybody's got their Harlan story, the great ones and the dark ones and the insane ones. Thing is: all the stories are great and dark and insane.

This kind of story would never happen to me. (Thank god, actually) But in my mythology it happens to Harlan every day. Peripheral as his part to play was, I think his presence in the story retroactively warped it.

Causality tends to look the other way around Harlan.

Here is a photo essay on what goes on behind the scenes at the Copyright Office, a part of the Library of Congress.

I'm sitting here writing (and watching the occasional episode of "Romeo X Juliet" or "Q6"), and I've cracked open the deck door to listen to the rain.

Some nights are nice.

Poor Jodi Picoult indeed. Why would DC get a successful author to write what ought to be one of their flagship titles, then saddle her with two fill-in artists and a tie-in to an ill-conceived company-wide crossover? The answer, as Graeme McMillan rightly deduces, is so they can claim to have a woman writing the title and so they can release a hardback collection with her name prominently listed on the cover.

You know, let's dig Robert A. Heinlein up and have him write a Star Trek novel. I'm sure that would be at least as successful.

Here's a nice coincidence, my flash "Benjo Fails to Connect" is today's offering at The Daily Cabal.

Banner credit: ldragoon

This all started with Jo Walton. No, with Howard Hendrix. No, with John Scalzi. Well, perhaps with Cory Doctorow. Or actually, with whoever it was who first gave away their writing. Let's get that Gideon guy with the bibles into the mix.

But let's settle on Scalzi. Nice guy, good writer, hot wife (as he's pointed out time and again). Also a bit of a firebrand. He's running for president of the Science Fiction Writers of America with a whole laundry list of grievances that boil down to trying to drag SFWA kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Dr. Howard Hendrix, current SFWA VP, perhaps smarting a bit, arranged for a rant (his word) to be posted on the SFWA LJ community calling those who post their work for free on the internet 'webscabs'. Supposedly, free stories are stealing consumers away from stories for which they'd have to pay.

This didn't sit well with Scalzi, or Doctorow, or any number of other SF writers who've posted their work, seen their sales rise as a direct result, and quite probably have helped bring new readers to the field who might purchase more rather than less. Here's where Jo Walton came in, calling for Monday, April 23rd to be dubbed "International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day". Others came along, writers and artists and photographers and programmers, all volunteering to post something online. Which explains the following.

After the cut, you can read my story "First Principles". It was my first sale to Asimov's SF Magazine, bought by Gardner Dozois while I was still at Clarion and published in 2004 (IIRC).

( Read First Principles )