Different Obvious

            When I was in grade 10, my English class read Lord of the Flies. I can’t say I remember all that much about the book, but I do have a very distinct memory of the projects we presented in front of the class.

            We were split into groups and each group had to do a presentation on the same set of questions. I don’t know if all the other groups handled the project the same way, but my group split the questions up, making each member of the group responsible for presenting the answer to their questions.

            The questions I took asked me to define what, in the book, was the Lord of the Flies and the Monster that was frequently mentioned. I chose the questions because the answer was so clear and obvious to me.

            When it came time for the presentations, my group went last. So, before making my presentation, I first heard the question answered by several other people. I was astounded – every answer presented was almost exactly the same. They boiled down to, “The Lord of the Flies is the pig head the boys put on a stake, and the Monster is the dead parachuter stuck on the cliff.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Everyone had the same answer but me.

            When I stood up to present my answer, I started by saying, “Well, my answer is a bit different than what others have said.” I then proceeded to explain how the Monster, while personified by the dead parachuter, was a representation of all the fears of the group of boys stranded on the island. Meanwhile, the Lord of the Flies was all the anger, hatred and violence that was awakened in the boys by their need to survive and their desires to do whatever they wanted. This was, of course, given visual representation by the bloody pig head on a spike, swarming with flies.

            I remember the class staring at me, dumbfounded. I don’t recall if the teacher’s expression was shocked or impressed – and I have no memory of the mark I received on the project.

            But I did find a deep understanding from that experience. You see, to me, the answer my classmates gave was too simple – they were facts pretty much stated in the book. What was the point in even asking those questions if there wasn’t something more? But others stopped at that answer, because, yes, it was obvious.

            However, to me, my answer was just as obvious. It was simply more abstract, but it had to be what the question was asking about. On the other hand, the stares I received told me that what was obvious to me hadn’t been obvious to others.

            From that, I learned that different things are obvious to different people – and that, generally speaking, when people find something they believe obvious, they stop. It’s obvious – why would they think about it further?

            I learned that, just because something is obvious, that doesn’t mean it’s obvious to everyone.

Something being obvious doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Hivemind

            So, I’ve talked before about the editing process I go through each time I finish a book. With my latest complete book, this has been added to slightly and I thought I’d share some of the interesting things I’ve learned.

            Now, as mentioned before, my editing cycle usually goes: I edit, my wife edits and fills in the spaces I’ve left for her, I edit, then I send it off to my parents (my mom line-edits, my dad gives me content feedback), then I edit again. This time I decided to reach out to a larger group of beta-readers, adding a few more layers to my editing.

            Why did I decide to do that this time? Three reasons – the first is that I have way more confidence in this book than any of my previous ones (I’m really happy with it! It’s very rare for any writer to actually be happy with what they’ve created), the second is that one of my dad’s coworkers asked to read my latest couple of books and he gave me some really important feedback on how some world building seemed absent from the book – something missed by everyone else because they’d read my previous books set in the same world. The third and final reason is that I was trying something risky with this book (it’s a secret!) and I needed a wider pool to test if it was working.

            I haven’t collected back in all the feedback yet, but what I have heard has shown me some interesting things. Because I’m getting feedback from so many more people than usual, I decided that, rather than go through the book with each set of editing suggestions, I would compile them all in one place. This way, I can compare the suggestions from multiple people and – best of all – see where they overlap.

            Of course, everyone is providing feedback on a level they are comfortable with – some just give feedback on content, some line edit, and some do both. As I’m adding in all the editing suggestions together, it’s fascinating to see the overlaps. Sometimes, multiple people suggest exactly the same edit (which is really cool to see, even it’s usually typos). Other times, I end up with multiple solutions to the same problem – which is really helpful because, not only do I have multiple suggestions to choose from, but it highlights when several people get caught up on the same thing that I might otherwise pass off as something of opinion or taste.

            Just as fascinating is seeing what different people catch. This is most obvious with typos – it’s easier to forgive myself for the number of typos that slipped by my notice when I’m seeing some editors catching typos that other editors missed.

            As for that risky thing I mentioned – that is the neatest thing of all to see. So far I’ve received the same feedback across the board on it (except from the one speed reader, who I believe missed the key introduction). Overall, everyone understood what I was doing and approved (though one, while approving the concept, did question the necessity of it and we had a great conversation on the topic), but they all had trouble with one minor, easily changed aspect of it. This was exactly the feedback I was looking for and now I can make the essential changes. I know, I know, I’m being cryptic and you have no idea what I’m talking about – you’ll just have to wait for the book to get published so you can read it.

            So, the moral of the story is that having a large pool of beta-readers to help improve your book is a wonderful thing. I’m so glad I reached out to more people than usual.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Inked: A Digital Review

            Inked, by Eric Smith, is a book I bought back in December with the intent to suck up to the author – who happens to be a literary agent (and by suck up, I mean research his tastes through seeing what he writes). Although, in truth, what sold me the most was the presence of moving tattoos in the book. Those lucky few of you who’ve read my first few books will be familiar with the creatures in my world known as ink sprites – basically, living tattoos. I was intrigued to see what a different author would do with a similar concept. I was not disappointed – I love how similar ideas can branch out to have such different results.

            Inked is set in a world where everyone, once they come of age, are tattooed with a magical ink that will show them what profession they will have for the rest of their lives – a florist might have flowery tattoos that grow and wilt with the seasons, while a smith could look to have trails molten metal coursing across their body. Naturally, Caenum is nervous about discovering his destiny as the time for his Inking approaches. The last thing he expects is for a catastrophe to strike his village, sending him and his lifelong friend Dreya on a magic-filled journey that will reveal the dark secret of Ink.

            Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It pulled me through, wanting to find out more about this fascinating world. I found the adventure to be fun and entertaining and the writing was excellent – I often struggle to read books written in first person (my brain has trouble focusing on that POV for some reason), but with this book I had no such problems.

            The characters were deep and interesting, but at the same time I felt they were a bit erratic. There were a few times throughout the book that characters behaved in a way that, to me, felt out of character – it could be the writer in me, but I felt like they were making choices or having extreme emotional reactions solely for the purpose of moving the plot forward. I would have been accepting of this as a character trait in one, maybe two, of the characters, but it was a bit too common and each time it happened I felt distracted from the story.

            There were also a few points when I was slightly confused by minor things in the environment. I loved the imagery of the Inked horse, but at the same time couldn’t help wondering if a horse’s tattoos would be visible through its fur. There was also a point where I had understood there to be snow on the ground, but suddenly there wasn’t. I’m not certain if it was a continuity thing, or simply that the change wasn’t clearly established.

            The plot itself flowed well and was entertaining. There were no surprises for me, but that’s because when I’m reading I’m always working out what is going to happen next. To me, no surprises means the author did a good job with foreshadowing – which he did. The plot twists were excellent and well-timed.

            All in all, I would recommend this book, especially to people who love interesting and well-designed worlds. And sneakily hidden pop culture references. Shame on you, Eric. Shame.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Habits

            It always astounds me how easily we get into habits. Or the things that can become habits, even when we are not expecting them to.

            Take writing, for example. I very deliberately developed a habit of writing every day. I made the decision to write every single day six years ago and I haven’t looked back. What I didn’t expect was the secondary habit I didn’t even notice I had until earlier this month.

            Once I finished writing my first book, I set a goal for myself to write a book every year. I managed it for the first five years, but last year I decided to switch it up a bit. I wanted to take the year to really focus on building the world I write in – developing people, places, cultures and maybe writing a few short stories.

I focused on that for about three months before I found myself with a book idea I just had to start right away. So, the new book took on much of my writing time until I had yet another idea. I focused on the world building around that idea, while still taking some time to work on the book until I’d developed the idea to the point where I was ready (and extremely excited) to start the new book.

            So, I did something I promised myself I would never do – I started the new book without finishing the previous one. What has all this got to do with habits? Well, I’m getting there.

            January rolled around and during my year of only world building I had a quarter of a book and a half of a book. However, for the last five years, January has been the time when I have started work on a new book. An idea started tugging at my brain – an idea for a book I’ve had for a while, but now my mind was trying to start writing it even though I have two unfinished books to complete first.

            That’s when it hit me. I’ve actually developed a habit of starting a new book in January. It is so ingrained in my brain that it tries to do it whether I want to or not.

            Apparently habits can be built into our systems on an annual calendar. I find it astounding to think our minds can pick up on something happening with such a large time gap in the middle and still make a habit out of it.

            Now I must go resist starting a third work in progress.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Nanowrimo

            November has drawn to a close and, with it, so ends this year’s Nanowrimo. What is Nanowrimo, you ask? It is (Na)tional (No)vel (Wri)ting (Mo)nth, when writers from around the world challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.

            I’m not one of those writers – although I do consider joining them every year. I know my limits, though. Some days I do manage to write enough words to reach that word count, but it’s only when inspiration strikes. Outside of that, my brain needs lots of background time to work on the story, otherwise I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

            However, Nanowrimo is about far more than reaching the word count. It encourages writers to just write, getting to the end of the story as fast as possible without making everything perfect. Multiple drafts, revisions and editing are for that.

The true goal is for writers to push themselves forwards with their writing and stretch their limits. That’s how I take part – by aiming to write more than I usually do. With a little over 10,000 words written in November, I’d say I succeeded in beating out my 5,000-6,000 word monthly average.

            There’s no way for a writer to fail at Nanowrimo as long as they do their best. However, for those that do reach the intended word count, hearty congratulations are in order. It’s no small feat to write a book that fast – so well done to you. Perhaps someday I’ll join your ranks.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.