Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Yo, Author, You Using That Higher Ed?

This Week's Topic:
What aspects of my formal education do I actually use as a writer?

Does daydreaming during lectures count? No? Well then, believe it or not, I use more of my Master's of International Commerce & Policy than I do my Bachelor's of English with a focus in Creative Writing.

Wait, wut? Yup, you read that correctly. If you're a regular reader of the blog, you've endured my opinions on the uselessness of higher ed in creative writing and being a novelist.  

How do my studies in International Commerce & Policy (MAICP) show up in my work? World-building and political intrigue. Wanna know how to knee-cap a neighboring government without using an army? MAICP. Want to understand how an international governing body makes laws to satisfy the masses but can neither implement nor enforce those laws? MAICP. Baking loopholes into trade contracts to exploit them and ruin an industry/economy/gov't party? MAICP. Need to implement an external conflict of man-made famine? MAICP supplies cause and cure! Want organizations bullying each other into submission? MAICP for the blueprint! How about creating a villain who uses the tactics of US lobbyists to screw over the protags? Say it with me, everyone, MAICP!

When it comes to the economics and policies of running or destroying an empire, MAICP is there for me. 

Quite possibly not the endorsement expected by the Alumni Association. 😇


Sunday, September 18, 2022

Circles of Community - How Writer Friends Keep Me Going

 

A gratifying milestone for me - DARK WIZARD has passed 500 ratings on Amazon! And with a 4.3 overall average, too. I'm so thrilled by all the love this book and series has received. 

I've been busy writing SHADOW WIZARD, the next book in this world (coming 9/29! available for preorder now), and so missed my usual Wednesday blog post. I'm making that up today, because I really did want to address this week's topic at the SFF Seven. We're talking about Writing Community and asking: do you have a writing community and if so (online, phone calls, zoom, in person) how do your interactions refill your creative well?

I'm so deeply grateful for my writing community! I have many different ones, from one-on-one friendships to large, professional organizations. Here's a smattering of them and how they refill that well.

Friends

Just yesterday I had one of my monthly hour+ phone calls with writer bestie Grace Draven. We've been doing this for a couple of years now. Aside from our other messaging via text and FB messenger, and quick calls, we set aside time to have longer conversations about our business strategy. These talks help us both clarify our priorities.

 I get on Zoom daily with another writer bestie, Darynda Jones. We typically do three one-hour writing sprints with some chatting in between. Having that company while writing (even though we mute while actually working) gives me a sense of companionship, and the daily discussions of our writing keep us invigorated. We can also bounce ideas off of each other, from "what's the word I'm trying to think of?" to "Help me solve this plot problem!"

I also have other writer besties I communicate with via email or social media, people I can call upon for insight or emergency beta reads. We don't necessarily talk on a regular schedule, but knowing they're out there is priceless.

Small Groups

I'm part of various smaller communities, from a private author group on Facebook, to a Fantasy Romance Discord, to the much larger Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) Discord. I love to dip in and out of these groups, answering questions and asking them, too. They're fun and fantastic resources.

Professional Organizations

I already mentioned SFWA. As the current president of the organization, I get to interact with all kinds of creators, from newbie writers to names on the spines of books on my shelf. Getting to email with Neil Gaiman, have coffee with Catherine Asaro, or chat for a few hours with Jane Yolen are thrills I never quite get over. Feeling like a part of that larger community is validating for me on a critical level. I believe more in myself and in my work for having those associations.

Conferences

I just returned from WorldCon in Chicago - my first big conference since the COVID pandemic - and it brought home to me how wonderful these gatherings are. Conferences bring in so many different members of the reading, writing, and creating community that the cross-section of conversation is incredibly stimulating. More than the programming, just getting to be around other people who love the same stuff and sharing that excitement refills my creative well like nothing else. One of the great revelations of the pandemic for me was how much social stimulation I gain from conferences. I value them like never before.

I value all of my writing communities, and am so grateful for each and every one of you!

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Writing in Community

 



Writing as a practice

Although I have been writing all my life, I began writing fiction seriously in the last five years. It began as a creative practice, like my crochet and baking. Still is–it helps me stay balanced and maintain a positive outlook. As I gained confidence and started sharing my work, I found kindred spirits online and joined discord groups for writers. In this way, I share my practice with others who are engaged in the same activities. Online interaction has been a necessity in the last few years, given that we were often in lockdown, but it would have been my choice as a neurodivergent individual who can struggle in social situations (especially with strangers). 


Emerging from the Cave

I relish the time I spend alone writing. But the myth that writing is a solitary activity is just that … a myth. 

The writing part–thinking and typing–can be solitary (although online writing sprints with your pals is a fantastic way to work on a first draft). Yet, the many parts of being an author involve interacting with others: writers, editors, agents, cover artists, PAs, publishers or fellow indie authors, bloggers, bookstagrammers, and on and on. And even writing your drafts is better with encouragement and feedback: there are alpha and beta readers, ARC readers and street teams–as well as writing critique groups, Facebook groups, and discord communities. 

You may think the time you spend on these interactions will take away from your writing time, but it is a necessary part of being an author. And the experiences can enrich your skills and lead to opportunities.


Finding Groups

Small groups work better for me, but I enjoy being in a couple of larger interest groups. There are any number of online classes, writing experts, and coaches who can set you up with a critique group. It is harder to find affordable or free options, but you can search for writers' groups on Facebook and Discord, many of which don't need a paid subscription. Those options, instead, require more of a DIY approach that can achieve good results. They are great for baby authors and those who don't have a lot of disposable income to throw around (that is, most of us).

For my purposes, there’s a supportive Facebook group for writers who are moms where they understand the challenges mom-writers face. It's a great place to lurk and share in my peers’ successes and setbacks. I also joined the FaRoFeb Facebook group and discord server for authors–one of the best decisions I made. It’s not a giant group, but big enough that some of the discord channels move very fast. However, I can poke along at my speed and keep up with a wonderful group of talented and dedicated authors who embrace all of our quirky Fantasy Romance interests and tangents. 

These groups form communities that lift up their members and make us all better. The more you participate, the better experience you will have, but it's all right to start out slow.


Learning and Growing

I treasure the interactions I have with my writer friends. We have learned the importance of open communication and we strive to balance support with critique. It's not easy, but we keep working at it, giving ourselves and each other grace when we don't live up to our high ideals. This small but mighty group is my ride-and-die. And I’m a better person, friend, and writer because of them.

I’ve learned a few things along the way. I’ll share them here, with the understanding that your journey may be very different.

  • I’ve learned to pay attention to my needs and abilities. Smaller groups and opportunities are more rewarding for me. You may be different - I have a friend who went to a large writers’ convention and loved every minute of it.  Work within your social battery settings and consider what helps you recharge.
  • I’ve learned that setting boundaries and making rules (or simply some agreed-upon ideas for how to be together) can make the community experience better. Authors are a prickly breed and misunderstandings and hurt feelings can happen. But we can also be the most supportive and loyal creatures in the world!
  • I’ve learned that sharing my work isn’t scary. It has increased my confidence and allowed me to see my stories more objectively, which has improved my revision skills. It’s been a mindset shift. I’m not killing darlings or offering up my babies; I’m working on projects that are shaped with feedback and advice to make them the best they can be. 
  • I’ve learned what I can contribute in providing feedback to my writer friends. I’m a teacher by training and am a pretty good copy editor. I also love to be a cheerleader by looking for ways that someone’s story bones could be improved. It makes me so happy!
  • I’ve learned to be more selective in my writing critique partners. I made a couple mistakes in the beginning by offering to provide feedback on projects that weren’t a good fit. Now that I understand better what I like, I can ask up front about the work so I can make an informed decision.

I didn't realize when I started this journey how much I would learn about myself--both the good and the bad. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone, challenging myself to do better happens most effectively when I have supports who will cheer me on and pick me up when I fall. 


Feeling blessed

As you saw in Kristine’s post this week, the FaRoFeb group released an exciting anthology on Tuesday! I am grateful to have a story in the collection–alongside this wonderful group of authors (and don't forget to read Grace Draven and Jeffe Kennedy’s introduction). The community exemplifies the magical possibilities of collaboration, support, and good humour that can make a good experience great.


Friday, September 16, 2022

Filling the Creative Well with Writing Communities

Writing communities tend to proliferate like rabbits. You think you don’t have any, then you turn around and you have six. I’m not any different. I thought I was out here all on my own until I began counting things up and yes, I have writing communities. A lot of them. They fall into a few categories:

  •  Organizations
  •  Publisher
  •  Educational
  •  Committed

Organizations are professional groups like RWA, SFWA, local chapters, and any other regional writing groups we might be members of. Pre-pandemic, these communities functioned both in-person and online. Now, they’re mostly online with a few tentative in-person events starting. The power of professional organizations is in the numbers – a wide range of knowledge and experience is available. The disadvantage of professional organizations is in the numbers – that wide range of points of view can and does stir drama. Regional or focused-interest groups (thriller, mystery or PNR groups) are a good energizer because you’re in a community of writers who understand your genre and presumably your interests. It creates synergy. Local chapters are the smallest of the professional organizations but that often translates into more frequent in-person interactions and more detailed sharing around your specific writing needs because you know the smaller group and they know you.

I derive energy from professional orgs because I never feel quite so valid as a writer as when I’m soaking up business advice from people who’ve already been where I am.

Publisher/publishing house – Many publishers have started author communities as a means of leveraging cross-marketing. These communities work under the premise that a rising tide lifts all boats. Occasionally, a publisher takes community to the next level and does a conference in an exotic location and then the virtual turns into an in-person excursion to Ireland. It’s a chance to put faces to the names you routinely see asking for newsletter spots and retweets.

I derive energy from my publishing community because my publisher is run by a committed group of people who really do give a darn about everyone who writes for them and who are passionate about the business.

Educational communities/co-ops/etc – Writing classes tend to engender community, if only for the length of the class. Don’t underestimate those class-length connections, though. Critique partners are often found through classes. Author co-ops are longer term associations focused on promotional/educational synergy. These communities fill my ‘always learning’ well. They are currently all virtual and online.

I derive energy from education and learning. Almost always. There are exceptions and in those exceptional cases, I’ve learned to walk away and go find a different class.

Committed communities – These are the long-term relationships we build with other writers. Critique groups. Our personal author circles. For me these are the communities that cross over the line between ‘writer community’ to friends. Well, okay. Friends who also write and who can dispense writing advice from time to time. These are the people who can, and do, apply a much-needed swift kick when the situation calls for it.  They bolster confidence and make suggestions for fixing that scene the mean old editor hated. Almost all my communities are virtual, including this one. I had in-person, then I moved across a continent. Critique still happens once a week, it’s just on Zoom. At the end of the month, I’ll have a quick, in-person visit when I take a short road trip. And I’ll get all kinds of energy from that.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Release Day: Fantast Romance Anthology ONCE UPON A FORBIDDEN DESIRE

We're super excited to announce our Saturday FaRoFeb bloggers' new anthology of fairy tales retold with steam and sizzle. This limited edition release includes a foreword by our own award-winning Wednesday blogger Jeffe. Get it now while it's a mere $0.99!

Once Upon a Forbidden Desire

When it comes to true love, rules are meant to be broken …

Dark forests and locked doors, poisoned apples and forbidden lovers ... Bold heroines and swoon-worthy heroes break all the rules in this enchanting anthology of the fairy tales you thought you knew.

Once Upon A Forbidden Desire features 20 enticing fairy tale retellings by a diverse selection of fantasy romance authors. From sweet true love’s kisses to sizzling passion, from the streets of Seattle to enchanted forests, and from poor scullery maids to a winged Prince Charming ...

If you enjoy spellbinding romance, enthralling new worlds, and stories with a taste of the forbidden, these happily ever afters will leave you spellbound. Give in to the temptation and grab your copy of Once Upon a Forbidden Desire now.

With a foreword by Grace Draven and Jeffe Kennedy, this limited edition anthology celebrates the variety of the fantasy romance genre. It contains stories ranging from sweet to steamy and is recommended for an adult audience.

BUY IT NOW: Amazon

Saturday, September 10, 2022

Top 5 Worldbuilding Tips

 


Worldbuilding has the power to captivate a reader. To transport them from their everyday life to somewhere surprising and unique. It’s why I love reading and writing fantasy, because the worlds are rich, enticing, and dramatic, intriguing, brutal, and romantic. And for me, when it comes to worldbuilding, it’s both the big picture and the little details that count. 

Here are five worldbuilding tips I’ve picked up along the way:

  1. Take inspiration from everywhere, everything, and everyone. Absolutely, read in your genre, that’s a given, but also watch and listen to media outside your usual sphere of influence. Podcasts, documentaries, history programs, mythology, fairy tales, the news … be a sponge, and seek out things that will force you to see the world from a different perspective. Check out science YouTube (or in my case, find someone else who has, and pick their brain!), watch people you do and don’t know, and notice what drives them and how they interact. Anything can spark an idea to enrich your world, from quantum computing, to crypto currencies, to the social hierarchies of indigenous tribes in the Amazon. Walk, watch films, look out the window on car journeys, listen to music, and don’t forget to write things down!
  2. In Lean Management, there’s a concept call The Five Whys, and it works well for worldbuilding too. The basic method is to ask why five times, and within five whys, you’ve probably got to the root cause of why something is the way it is. Why does your world trade in the way it does? Why do they use certain materials? Why are the roads paved with gold? If you don't know why (at least roughly speaking), you might have holes in your world, or it might even be blocking you. You don't need to have EVERYTHING mapped out, but you do need to know the bones of how things work and play together: politics, infrastructure, magic, religion, education, employment, the economy, healthcare … you get the drift.
  3. I had an amazing sociology teacher who told my class that the quest for power, wealth, and status drives a huge amount of human behavior (along with reproduction, of course). Think about how people get each of these things in your world. Is there something unique about how power, wealth, or status is derived? Who has these things now, and how do they pass from one person to another? Understanding that will help with character motivations too (especially for the bad guys).
  4. Pay attention to the details, and remember consistency is key. Keep a wiki or spreadsheet to help you keep track (or a big piece of paper with all the important information. If low tech works best for you, it works best for you). Draw diagrams and maps, and experiment with what helps you most, along with what best sparks your creativity. To make sure the details work across your world, ask yourself questions from the perspective of all. You might be writing about the nobles, but does it make sense for a peasant, or a merchant, or a teacher, or a medic? Or better yet, have someone else ask you. Conversations often flush out holes.
  5. Be playful, explore, be curious, and be open to “failure”. Worldbuilding should be fun, and nobody can limit your imagination. If you find yourself down a rabbit hole that doesn’t pan out, so what? You probably had a wild time exploring in your mind. Not every idea has to yield fruit, but push yourself to go further, think bigger, and be bolder, knowing that some ideas will “fail”. That’s fine. It’s part of the process. And a failure might spark an even better idea. But keep going, for a lush, alluring world will be your reward.



HR Moore writes escapist fantasy with dangerous politics and swoon-worthy romance. She’s known for pacy writing, plot twists, and heroines who take no prisoners. HR also started FaRoFeb (Fantasy Romance February), a community for readers and authors to elevate and celebrate the fantasy romance genre. 
You can connect with HR Moore (and get a free story) here: https://linktr.ee/hrmoore


Friday, September 9, 2022

Everything Happens for a Reason

World Building Tips

1. Be anti-monolith: One of the great disservices modern science fiction has done is convince some of us that worlds out there in the greater galaxy are monoliths. An ice world. A desert world. A water world. Reality is demonstrably different - and not simply because Earth has wild variation in climactic zones. Each of the worlds in the solar system demonstrate the same thing. Sure. Mars is red and dusty everywhere. But there's ice at the poles. The equator is warm. Relatively speaking. Even Mercury has wild temperature swings, from 800 degrees on the day side to -290 degrees on the night side. Of course, we can't talk about ecosystems per se, not on Mercury, but we could on Mars. If, someday, humans colonized Mars and began planting crops and trees and otherwise terraforming the Red Planet, there would be climactic zones. Plants would have to adapt or be engineered for different conditions. It's the long way of saying that while we can speak of Europa being a monolith (an ice and water moon) it's likely that most worlds are a combination of many climate types with unique and disparate ecosystems based on an evolutionary history distinct from Earth's.

2. Cultures develop in concert with the evolution of a species: Human culture developed concurrently as humans developed. As an example, caring for the dead is used as a hallmark of culture and is usually attributed to the Neanderthal about 130 thousand years ago. Recently, the discovery of Homo naledi in South Africa pushed the evidence for deliberate burial back to about 225 thousand years ago. The point being that sentient creatures being organizing into societies far earlier than most of us imagine. If a culture in your world does a particular thing, it's likely they've doing the thing far longer than you or your main characters think. It's a great point of conflict if an outsider comes in trying to change some long-held cultural activity. It's an even stronger conflict for someone within the culture to challenge long-standing tradition.

3. Culture often develops in the direction of evolution: This specifically means that when a culture adopts a practice, it is because the practice confers either sexual advantage or survival advantage. Bonus if it's both. If someone within my made up culture takes up regular bathing, they're might gain reproductive advantage because they don't smell or because keeping clean prevents infection giving them more chances to reproduce over time. Another long way of saying that in world building, everything needs to happen for a reason.

Even though the book has been out for several years, I will always recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies-ebook/dp/B06X1CT33R) . It is the how-to book on world building because it breaks down the how earth societies and cultures developed. Why some cultures seemed to conquer the world, while other cultures sank into oblivion or where wiped out. It a very handy book in helping prompt world builders to consider how illness, domesticating animals, and developing agriculture changed the shape of humans and of human culture and at what price.

Maybe that's the final piece of world building advice: Everything has a price tag. Magic. Culture. Disrupting culture. Art. Religion. You get to decide what the price tag if for each of those. Even if you're creating your own world from scratch, the laws of physics still apply. The law of conservation of energy suggests that for every expenditure of energy for something like magic, there's an equal and opposite reaction somewhere else. You get to decide what and where.

Thursday, September 8, 2022

World Building...Don'ts


a hand holding a chioggia beet sliced in half showing the red and white alternating rings and the words World Building Layers around it


Oh man, my fellow SFF Seveners have had some excellent posts sharing their Top 5 World-Building Tips. How do I add to that??


#1: Should I craft a brand new language, a-la-Tolkien? It could be a spin off of dwarvish with a little Orc thrown in and I could put together an entire dictionary with phonetics…Wait….


#2: Maybe I’ll start with a Venn diagram of all the different types of magic in my book’s world. Similarities, differences, strengths, weaknesses, uses, taboos—which leads to a spreadsheet of who uses what and where and how along with character specific phrases and quirks that occur when they use magic. Maybe there should be colors involved, or at least a color coordinated spreadsheet, that will help when I compare my magic system to some of the classics out there…but…


#3: The classics all have history! I need to world-build with extensive history!! My characters will be able to trace their ancestry back hundreds of years. Classics always hide a spy or assassin in the ancestry, someone way-back-when that changed the tide of a monarchy—in that case I need all the details on how that monarchy was built and run, foils and successes, heroes and villains…


#4: Villain names, as well as the heroes, should have meaning that is reflected in the plot line of the story. Which means research time! There are oodles of Pinterest boards to get you in the perfect villain mood. And you like that one blue cape that has a slight silver sheen to it? Well, it’s your lucky day because there’s a shop in California that makes them and, what, there’s this Insta account that has gorgeous pictures of costumes in jaw dropping places…


#5: MAPS! How will the characters know where to go if there’s no map! There will be a current time map which connects to all the maps of the adjoining countries and all of those maps will have ancient maps because what hero doesn’t stumble upon a near-disintegrating map and have to make a calculated guess as to their current time translation….


Yeah….let’s just say Jeffe had it right when she said your book is the tip of an iceberg, not the entire iceberg. If you put the time and effort into writing the entire iceberg on paper(screen) you’ll log countless hours…and then you’ll still have to write the story. 


Don’t get bogged down, my friends! Happy Writing!