J C GALE

As I edit Impatience and Balance at the same time, yes yes I know I must be mad; there are a number of scenes in both books which just plain bug me. It’s not the events that occur, or even grammatically challenged prose; rather a detail here or there gnaws at my conscious. For example, in one scene I have a pilot talking to a radio tower, something I have never done. I’ve heard this sort of thing plenty of times before as someone I know actually is a real life pilot. I was never really interested enough, or had reason to learn what the ‘Piper Foxtrot blah blah’ actually means. I’m vaguely aware of some of the terms like ‘ILS’ and umm ‘artificial horizon’ thingy. Yeah I’m sure you get the picture.

I know what I have written in this particular scene is close enough to sell most people and in truth, this is a small detail. Yet still it’s not quite right and that bugs the hell out of me. This is the sort of details my best friend Google can only help me with so far. I need to talk to an experience person, otherwise that feeling is simply never going to go away and my control freak button will be pressed forever in the on position. I simply cannot have that!

Last week I enjoyed a lunch with some friends I used to work with at a previous job. Apart from enjoying the catch up, one of these individuals used to be in the Australian Army, Signals Corps. As I am a 9 to 5 slave to the IT Corporate world, my exposure to all things military is well, ahem, somewhat limited. It’s fair to say my reliance on other way, way smarter people than me is proving to be quite useful.

Impatience has a number of scenes involving military personnel. In my ignorance, I had simply used the rank ‘Private‘ to cover about 90% of all supporting military characters. This might seem lazy and present a level of indifference. Nothing could be further from the truth! This generalization allowed me to keep moving through the story, which is a good thing as both books were finished to draft some time ago. Otherwise I could still be searching through the internet for the required details. It’s always better to finish, get the plot out and then revise until your eyes bleed, well metaphorically speaking a book rather than get hung up on details.

I’m happy to admit only a few people have noticed this minor detail of the grander plot and in truth it’s not a big deal. Yet still it gnaws at me. Suffice to say after detailed revision of my chicken scratching, covered in sauce from the lunch, I have now applied more realistic ranks to individuals and have a fair grasp on what constitutes a unit / division / platoon.

I strongly believe the less distractions, or annoyingly incorrect details within any story, lead to a better reading experience. In essence, if a reader purchases a book and the author has done sufficient homework to ensure they are not insulted, annoyed or otherwise peeved, than the experience should be a positive one. Hopefully positive enough to prompt the reader to enter a second agreement, that is buy another book from said author.

Now that would be really cool!

Midweek I submitted the short story. I feel quite satisfied with the effort and greatly appreciate my proof readers assistance, you know who you are

This weekend has been a big clean-up. I finally got round to tidying my otherwise chaotic study. I now have my hardcopy revisions under control, no mean feat! I also have setup a whiteboard, which I intend to use heavily coordinating the editing I mentioned in the last post.

Not much else to report right now, I have a huge task in front of me and plan to sink my teeth into it this week.

I’ m half way through The Risen Queen, book 2 of Duncan’s trilogy. These books are hard to put down!

I wandered into my local Dymocks store today and found the next two of Duncan Lay’s ‘The Dragon Sword Histories’ trilogy. Even better, both copies were pre-signed! I’m very happy about this and have already made a start into book two.

My short story for The Age competition is done to draft. I’m receiving lots of feedback from family and friends which is greatly appreciated and will tweak it accordingly over the next few days.

So, what’s next I hear you ask?

Well, after receiving the clear message from AussieCon to edit, edit and re-edit until my brain explodes, I plan to focus on editing ‘Impatience’. I actually picked up a draft copy (those who have one know what I mean) to flip through the other day as my brain was having withdrawals from finishing Duncan’s first book. I started off by reading a few chapters in a clinical non-emotional way. Before I knew it, I had read 60 pages and inevitably became emotional swept up by it all.

*Sigh*

I plan to knuckle down and re-work the manuscript performing the following activities in this specific order:

Section edits – fixing the many *ahem* assumptions to meet real life facts. For example, military ranks which I know very little about although my friend Lucas understands quite well from first hand experience.

Full edit – focusing on the plot, specifically looking for continuity errors. I need to whiteboard the story and use this to list out the entire timeline, which I am told needs some attention.

Full edit – focusing on the characters and adding a bit more depth and understanding at key plot points.

Full edit – looking for anything superfluous and or distracting which might annoy the reader.

Collapse in a heap!

Actually I will most likely distribute a series of drafts to the usual crew for further feedback. I have already ‘murdered two darlings’, that is to say removed superfluous content and reworked some continuity so the story is different already.

The one thing I am not prepared to do is put down timeframes. Due to the recent short story competitions of late, I have had enough of deadlines for a while.

This last week has just flown by. I reviewed my chicken scrawl from the sessions at AussieCon. Hmmn, my handwriting is simply awful! I think I am so use to typing now I rarely write much of anything down. I doubt my ‘notes’, especially out of context, would add much value so I think I’ll just go back to my usual ‘what I have been up to’ blogging style.

This week I’m actively writing a story, hopefully the one I will enter into the Age newspapers 3,000 word short story competition. The deadline is still 15 days away so if it doesn’t pan out, I can always whip up another one. I’m learning writing a smaller story is actually quite difficult.

Someone, I can’t remember who, at one of the sessions said most writers have a natural proficiency for either short stories or novels but not usually both. I think I lean toward novels simply because I like the process of exploring where things go in far greater depth. As a writer you sort of fall in love with your characters, even the bad ones. It’s great fun to become them, well in your head at least. This process is too limited if I only have a predetermined size constraint.

What else? Well I’m stealing time here and there to chew through Duncan Lay’s ‘The Wounded Guardian’, book 1 of his trilogy. I haven’t read much Fantasy of late as the last few years I seem to be devouring Clive Cussler’s and re-reading everything Matthew Reilly. I’m not sure if it’s Duncan’s writing style but I’m hooked, completed engrossed in the unusual story of a ‘I’ve seen and done too many bad things’ soldier and an energetic 6 year old girl who drives him nuts. A very unusual pairing, offering Duncan plenty of room for humorous situations, to which he does a very solid job.

Having two girls and one of them being 7, I’m finding plenty of parenting ‘nodding moments’ in the story. I think I can learn a lot from this book. Not only how to deal with my kids but how to improve my writing in a number of areas. When I met Duncan he mentioned how he did 20 full revisions. Many detailed edits before the book was picked up by an agent and eventually published.

Contrary to this, so far I have completed 3 full edits of Impatience and 2 more partial edits of key sections. All of these were done before I really understood how to edit in a effective manner. I’m also still developing my writers ‘voice’.

So yeah, I guess I have more work to do!

Sunday proved to be even better than Friday! Not only were the panels once again fantastic, this time I managed to squeeze in more one on one time with a variety of experienced authors, editors and publishers.

I grabbed a variety of photo’s:

The Melbourne Convention Centre, interior and exterior architecture.

The Polly Woodside located immediately next to the convention centre.

Melbourne in the morning sunlight.

A list of all the Authors doing signings on the Saturday. I hope this gives an impression as to the breadth of talent at AussieCon.

I captured the size of the crowd in the morning, everyone rushing about to get to whatever session they were after. I also took a photo of the signing line in the afternoon.

Throughout the day a variety of costumed individuals wandered around. Being a Star Wars fan I couldn’t resist the opportunity to grab a few shots.

The inflatable Dalek is owned by the man in the photo who was more than happy for me to take the picture. Apparently some time ago these were for sale at ABC shops.

Panel members from some of the sessions I attended.

There are a few specific photo’s I would like to explain in a little more detail. First, the cover image of Duncan Lay’s first book in his Dragon Sword Histories trilogy ‘The Wounded Guardian’.

I attended Duncan’s kaffeeklatsch. For those that don’t know, me included, these were break out coffee sessions. 9 guests sit at a round table with the host, typically an author and talk. Here is a photo late in the day once they were done.

My plans to catch Mur Laffferty’s and or Kim Falconer’s kaffeeklatsch fell through. I must have looked dejected as the lovely lady organizing these sessions recommended I attend Duncan’s instead.

I am so glad she did.

I discovered he is Australian and recently first time published. His fantasy series looks very interesting so I purchased the first and he signed it for me. At the end of the day we had a quick chat. In typical Australian fashion, I would describe Duncan as a top bloke with a sharp mind and not surprisingly a great series. If you are into Fantasy go get it, it’s selling like hot cakes!

Last but certainly not least I caught up with Ian Irvine, another well known Australian author. Ian has published 27 novels. Wow. As it happens, my wife is currently reading one of his fantasy series and I chatted to him about that for some time. He had five minutes spare so I ran a few issues past him that I’m presently having with my novel Impatience. He was generous of his time and gave some honest, well thought out advice. I couldn’t pay to get better advice from anyone. Thank you Ian!

That is it for photos.

Over the next week I’ll post some more specifics on the sessions I attended.

What a day!

Being my first ever con, I was a little apprehensive however I soon got into the swing of things. Here are some quick comments in point form for clarity:

Professionally run – took 5 minutes to register, staff are all volunteers too.

Melbourne Convention Centre is an amazing venue – easy to find via public transport. Comfortable chairs, well laid out, got lost (I know how lame) a few times trying to find room xyz.

People – Diverse crowd, a few unusual outfits. Plenty of interesting people across fans (Sci Fi and Fantasy) – people selling, buying, listening, talking – all sorts of activity and late night party invites. I met someone for lunch, another Melbourne based writer and we chatted away.

Dealer Room – Too many great books. If you like Sci Fi and or Fantasy, this room is evil… Every bookstand had 20, 30 or maybe 40 plus books I could have purchased on the spot. Staff on the stores are very friendly too.

Food – not much onsite, just coffee’s and cakes. Right next door in the Hilton hotel and next / under that is DFO with a decent size food court. Yay Subway!

Sessions – Best of all are the sessions. Opportunities to listen to experienced writers, editors and publishers discuss their various experiences and hear their take on current trends (vampires are on the out, btw).

Some of the topics covered; Young Adult book editing & publishing, interpretations of the TV show Lost, Orphans in books, writing across genre’s, a chat between two industry legends Robert Silverberg and Kim Stanley Robinson.

I mentioned in previous posts that I regularly listen to podcasts. One of my favourites is
I Should Be Writing by the talented Mur Lafferty. Mur is a published author who has been podcasting for 5 years. I am grateful for her time today as she skipped almost an entire session just to speak with me. Wow, this blew me away!

I made the most of it. Poor Mur suffered a detailed info dump on my two novels. Hey, I had a few specific questions and I made the most of the opportunity. She is here with her husband and daughter and loving the trip. If you read this Mur, thank you very much!

I’m a little tired to go into it all in detail, suffice to say the content was excellent. In fact it exceeded my expectations and everyone I met was positive and genuinely helpful as I seem to have a lot of writing questions of late.

Here are some pictures from today. A few are average as I’m no photographer.

More to come when I cover Sunday’s sessions, I can’t wait

All sorts of different things, make your own light saber – how cool is that?

On Friday I mailed my two short stories via express post and I have just now confirmed they arrived ok. It’s a great feeling and I’m certainly on a high from it. The competition results won’t be known until March 2011. By then I’ll no doubt be working on a thousand other things.

So what now? What’s next? I’m currently taking a few days off to recharge the batteries as the burn at the end of last week was pretty intense. Over the weekend I heard of another short story competition, this time a maximum of 3000 words for the Age newspaper.

I have never written to a 3,000 limit before. I have an entire month to do this in so I’ll give it a go, why not? I’ve got an idea in mind that I’m trying to put into a very simply story arc. I’m waiting for my subconscious to work it all out and the little bell in my head to ring, informing me the story framework is ready. I’m not sure it’s going to happen this time due to the size constraints, only time will tell. 3,000 words allow for relatively simple stories and like always I feel this idea might have the legs for something larger. Why does this keep happening to me!

If it doesn’t work out I’ll simply do something else. The world is my oyster and there is a story in almost everything. I feel very capable of writing short stories now which is great.

This weekend is AussieCon and I’m very much looking forward to it. Over the last few days I spent considerable time trying to map out all the sessions I want to attend. Unfortunately on a few time slots there are as many as 5 interesting events and only one me, doh!

Such is life.

Watch this space for plenty of AussieCon feedback early next week.

Both short stories are almost complete. I need a few more days to add some polish. The first is 90% there and the second is probably 60%, still in draft state. Unfortunately I’m not at liberty to post them online as this is one of the rules of the competition. Feedback from a few proof readers has been great and helped tidy up a few of the details.

I’ve had to go back and re-print both novels as my copious editing has resulted in a bit of a versioning issue.

I know, my bad. Its under control now so once the stories are submitted I’ll be nose down back into the editing.

In my free time I’m reading 7th Son: Descent by J.C. Hutchins. It’s an interesting story about human cloning and a whole lot more. I especially like the tight writing style. Anyway the first 10 chapters are available for free if you’re interested:

7th Son: Descent

It’s Saturday morning and I find myself in an unusual situation as I have a small window of free time

Apologies to my regular blog readers, my life has been rather hectic of late. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be able to find some time to blog a little more regularly.

Right now I’m taking a few weeks break from the editing as hey, I’m on no set schedule and I’m doing some more writing! I decided a week ago to write two short stories for a competition closing the end of August.

It’s fantastic to be writing again. I’ve completed the first short story in draft. It’s just shy of 4,000 words and the second is about half way done at just over 2,100 words. The competition, like most for short stories, has a 5,000 word limit. I think I’m going to struggle with the second story because it has the legs to probably extend out to a novella if I wanted it to.

On this second story I have been a bit bogged down over the last few days on a few details. Yesterday I had a twenty five minute brainstorming session with a good friend as I was struggling to piece a few bits together. Sometimes when writing I can get too hung upon on one or two concepts and fail to see the forest for the trees, such is my focus. This session was extremely helpful. I continue to be amazed by the helpful attitudes of my family and friends. There involvement is very much appreciated.

That’s about it for now. I’m fairly certain my competencies leans more toward writing than editing, however I’m sure that should come as no surprise to those who know me.

This week I attended an online chat / tutorial session by a friend, Kim Falconer, who is an amazing author. During this chat they gave away four copies of her books and I won the first book, Path of the Stray of her new trilogy. I’m excited about this as everything I hear about Kim is positive.

Only problem is I’ll have to buy her other books now, lol. All writers should read so its all good!

Kim has an amazing website, check it out if you have the time:

Kim Falconer

I’m going to attend AussieCon4 for a few of the days:

AussieCon4 at the Melbourne Convention Centre

This will be my first ‘con’ and I already have a few of the guests picked out that I will endeavour to chat with. It runs from Thursday the 2nd to Monday the 5th of September at the Melbourne Convention Centre. This particular global sci fi convention comes to Australia once every 10 years.

I’m fairly excited about this as they do breakout coffee session called this bizarre word ‘Kaffeeklatsches’ which I have no idea how to pronounce. Anyway, this is where members (attendees) get to listen to veteran authors, editors etc on a variety of topics. I have mentioned in previous posts how I regularily listen to a number of Podcasts on writing. For me the podcasts are very helpful as its great to hear other author’s stories and issues they deal with all the time.

I’ll be posting lots of details all about the con in September.

The more I learn about writing, the more I realise how little I actually know. I’ve been reading a few different things of late, not always novels as I honestly have little free time at present. What I’m reading is quite diverse and interesting none the less. Everyone writes differently, with their own unique style. I’m still discovering mine. As I edit both books I’m finding my style is changing slightly as it forms for the better.

I’m developing the skill to see, in most instances, the bits and pieces which really need to be fixed. That’s not to say the writing is the best it can be or anything like that. What I mean is with the required changes it is now at least comfortable for the reader and a whole lot less irritating. Grammatical errors annoy as they gnaw away at the reader and distract from their enjoyment of the story.

Take for instance an average movie. You got to the cinema, pay good money and leave thinking it was okay but not exactly impressed. Whenever I think or talk about movies of this calibre, it’s not the good parts I remember, it’s always the characters or the section of the plot that lost me. I certainly don’t want my writing to result in the same effect.

On the other hand how cool is it when you see an awesome movie you just love. I know I always talk up a positive movie or book to others. It’s great to discuss the positive aspects with someone else who gets it. If I could get that reaction from readers, not all of them of course because you can’t please everyone, that would be the icing on the cake.

A few days ago I decided to write a couple of short stories for a competition. I must admit it’s nice to be writing again. It’s a buzz to play out some ideas and see where they go. Not all are working or as they say have the legs but I’m enjoying the process. Creating something from nothing is a lot of fun. At least I think so!