Cardboard Tubes, Samurai and the Differences Between Men and Women

Today, at work, one of the guys had a shirt with the phrase "Cardboard Tube Samurai" on it. Apparently it is a web comic. I tried an experiment - I ask all the people nearby what the phrase "Cardboard Tube Samurai" brings to their mind. All the women looked at me like "what?"... some guessed... "So, a samurai made out of cardboard?" All the guys said the same thing "That is when you take a cardboard tube and use it like a samurai sword" - some would say it, some would pantomime it, but every one of them had an immediate visceral reaction to the phrase. Not only that, but everyone when asked affirmed something I suspected - they had all DONE it. Not only could they immediately imagine the same thing, they all had personal experiences they could relate to it.

Is this cultural? Are we socialized into this, or is it biological? Is the physical wiring of the male mind different from female in a way that immediately causes the male to recognize that the primary purpose of a cardboard tube unadorned with wrapping paper is to be a sword?

I wish Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung were alive today. I believe they would have an answer. I am afriad to ask what Freud would have said.

Got a reply from a reviewer, and more on sequel

Reviewers
I heard back from two reviewers. One who said their focus was more on young adult literature and not so much middle grade, but from that I got a referral from a reviewer that is interested in reading the book. I sent a copy in mail on Saturday. I was told that maybe they could manage a review by late February.

Am I nervous? A little bit. I am getting nothing but positive feedback from friends and family, but of course, that is friends and family. They are normally nice to me anyway... and given what I know about what it is like to live with me that puts their feedback in a very suspicious light. Still, no risk, no glory. Besides, with the POD self-publish thing, revisions are pretty cheap, as opposed to having to do a complete reprint of a run you did 100k books of.

Of the other reviewers I sent email to, none of them have replied back. My assumption is that blogging and book reviewing is not their day job. No worries, the list of reviewers is long. I am patient. Besides, I sort of want to see what the first reviewer says first anyway.

The Sequel
I seem to have no problem right now with writer's block. If I am having any problem, it is writing too much story. The book is about 160 pages right now and the main conflict with the primary protagonist has only barely started. Meanwhile, I am doing all these other side stories, plot devices, gag bits, back stories and character development parts. Each piece individually feels good, but I am worried the whole is getting lost in the shufle. Still, I am writing so smoothly and freely that I think I will be better off letting my mind just go with it until I finish and then go mad with the revisions.

Writing and impact on my day job

I am finding a new sense of creativity at work right now. Part of it is just necessity - the job demands it now, but part of it seems to be the writing I am doing at night. There are a number of really large testing problems I have struggling to understand over the last nine months now. I am now faced with the moment where we must transition to dealing with precisely those problems.

I was really intimidated during my break in December, worried that I would just freeze and not know what to do or how to do it. Instead, I found that ideas started coming to me very quickly and naturally. Problems that were really hard to figure out in Fall were second nature this week. Seemingly massive, intractable problems (how to get approximately 20 different product groups to do cohesive performance testing of capacity, impact on resources and load, reliability, page latency, etc.) began sorting themselves out in mind into smaller numbers of categories of problems that could actually be described in a much simpler way.

Maybe it was the extra vacation time forced on me by the snow, but I believe that forcing my brain to exercise by writing more often is also contributing to the flow. I really do feel very different right now than I did just one month ago.

Testing the water with book reviewers

Such a random process.

I basically found a website that had a list of a bozillion book reviewers. I picked three from the list that did kid lit reviews, went to their blogs to make sure they seemed to have decent material, and then sent an email to each of them. I am totally making this up as I go - let's see what I get.

I have a feeling that doing this correctly on the blogosphere is going to pay off, but I really don't know. Right now, I am just going on faith that the book will be well received. So far it has been read only by friends, and while I trust them, there is that worry about the bias of familiarity, desire to avoid an awkward situation, etc.

I actually have one family member I have not heard back from yet - my brother's partner, Tom. Tom is an artist by trade (runs a framing business - really great eye) and he does not shy away from brutal assessment right to your face. I am eagerly awaiting his opinion, even if it means I some bruises. Right now I say I want the bruises... but as well all know, we never really know how we are going to react when faced with it.

Out of these book reviewers, I am really just looking for exposure. The online ads yielded zero, but I believe that is because people just don't want to buy a book they have never heard about from an author they have never heard about. Unless you are John Grisham, I don't think advertising is really the way to go for books. Book reviews, on the other hand - assuming the reviewers have the exposure - well, let's see.

Blogger pitch for my book...

A friend put in a plug for Millicent her blog in an article about independent bookstores: http://lori.henshaw.org/lets-hear-for-independent-book

Grammar...

No, there are, not, enough, commas, for, me. Parallel verb structure? I can't even parallel park.

Yes, I need to fix this - I will get right on it. Really. Maybe it can be my new year's resolution.

Forcing away writers block

So far, what works for me is just to sit down and write ANYTHING. When the story as at some point, some cross roads, I just think of anything at all that could happen next and begin writing.

When I am stuck like that, I don't even care how much I write. I just go until the natural flow stops. The most important point, though, is to at least establish some sort of action. That way, if I do stop, the story is in the middle of something that has momentum or is ready to tip over into something else, so picking up the story from that moment is much easier.

Of course, stopping mid-action might not be necessary. If I am fortunate, I will have enough of a flow going that what comes next after the action sequence is complete will become obvious - the creative block will have resolved itself well enough that I can pick up a whole new sequence the next time I sit down.

What stops me up is when I let the story sit where some minor action sequence is completely done, some idea has been completed and I don't know what the follow up is. I then let the story sit for a long time (I have one book I am 2/3 of the way through that has been sitting for over 2 years now) as I let my imagination stew on what is supposed to happen next. I worry about the big picture issues, the larger direction of the plot flow and how to resolve the points that quite work out. Resolving those issues takes a lot of time, and the loss of momentum just makes it worse. The solution, therefore, is just to get momentum from anything, even if its a passage you completely re-write or remove later.

Just went through a bit of that tonight. By the time my first paragraph was done, I had burst the dam and I cranked out 8 pages AND set up the action for the next chapter.

Makes me realize that once I am done with Millicent's sequel I need to do the same thing with the other book...

I think I solved the problem...

Okay, for the sequel...

I am going to avoid spoiler this time. As mentioned in my previous post, I was in the middle of conflicting story direction purgatory. I finally forced myself to finish the chapter. My solution - just go for style, push funny more than plot intricacy, and see what falls out naturally.

My problem with newspaper style writing simulation was solved (I think) by just assuming the reporter was a pompous gossip rag columnist. It made pushing funny much better.

And now that I have moved past this point in the book, I believe I have figured out a way to resolve the conflicting directions. Small spoiler: I think the second book will end with a cliff-hanger... which allows me to develop both stories at once, just sequentially deal with the outcomes.

Okay... let's see how it plays out...

Oh, I don't like how this chapter is going...

I can tell, because it is going slowly.

I can't talk about this without a spoiler, so if you don't want a spoiler, skip this post until after you read the book. Who knows, maybe I will have deleted this part of the book by the time I am done, which will give you some "behind the scenes" material to look at afterward.

I am just past the chapter where the Admiral is re-introduced to the action in the story. He has made a spectacle of himself in front of the mansion, going on about how everything was stolen from him. This is critical, because having the Admiral back escalates the conflict from a simple "How do we get this toy business going?" problem to "How do we deal with the Admiral?" - he serves as the primary antagonist for all the action in the story.

The chapter I am on is meant to do a few things:
- pit the turn of events AGAINST Millicent
- introduce a bit of backstory for the Admiral... character development

The device is newspaper articles. One describing the Admiral's outbreak in front of the mansion. Another is a "Who is this Millicent person?" bio piece, and the other an interview with the Admiral, where he gets to tell his slanted view of the story. The articles are biased in the Admiral's favor, which sets further conflict in motion (Admiral takes legal action... which will further bias against Millicent). The interview is also meant to give some background story of the relationship between the Admiral and the General when they are younger. This is meant to build some character definition, but also serves as a foundation for further backstory filling later on the part of Nobbins, whose history with both men goes back farther than we think.

The problem - I am hating this chapter. Part of it is I am not comfortable writing in newspaper style. With prose I can just go whatever flavor is comfortable to me, but in imitating a newspaper article, it has to SOUND like a newspaper article. I finally commited myself to something to simplify it - that to make the article style be more gossip rag-like. First, this let's me adopt a more loose style to the writing, but it also let's me exaggerate the conflict more.

The other reason I am having trouble, though, is that I know it is leading somewhere I haven't fully fleshed out yet. I am not sure what I am going to do after this chapter is done. If I commit to a legal battle, then I have to deal with the actions that come after - and I start to worry that the story is getting too long and tedious. I also have an alternative thread going about Millicent's own struggle trying to get the mansion and toy production under control - and it is hard to develop that storyline without fighting for time with the parallel storyline about the Admiral's fight with Millicent. So far, I have not mentally rationalized the two together.

Okay... enough for now.

Plowing through the plot

I am currently in the middle of writing the sequel to Millicent Marbleroller. The title is "Sequel to Millicent Marbleroller and the House of the Toymaker", and is going to stay that way until I figure out something better.

I created an outline of the whole story first, laying out a chapter for pretty much each line in the outline. Then I started filling in the details from the beginning.

Sometimes, I make story notes instead of write. An idea strikes me about a plot point, a character, a bit of action. When it does, I go to the chapter that matches from the outline and put the notes in there. Being a computer geek, I usually surround it with XML style tags to make it easier to find later.

From that point, I have just been writing freeform from the start of the book and moving forward. I have been trying to write a little bit every night, even if it is just a paragraph. I am not thinking very hard about the overall storyline, instead just letting the ideas come in the story as I type. The outline mostly inspires the ideas, but I don't check it once I have started. This works out pretty well, but sometimes the story strays. Sometimes the logic of the original outline doesn't work, or the motivation of one of the characters isn't really believable. Sometimes I introduce a new character or scene that contradicts the story, or creates a new point of view that has to be explained. Sometimes I pepper in too many clever parts for humor or interest, and those distract from where the story is going. When I am first writing, though, I ignore all of that and just move forward, writing what hits me.

Right now, I find that the story is moving in a direction that wants to pull completely away from the original plot outline. Maybe I will do a comparison of where it is gong versus where I planned it to go after I finish the book. I come from the world of software development where you don't tell the customer what you planned on doing until actually do it, so I would rather show the finished product and then talk about specifics on thought development.

Anyway, at the moment I am seeing if I can still have the story flow out naturally as I write it and still follow the outline. If the two cannot resolve I will likely let the free-form version win out, although I am definitely going to review it afterward to see if it feels right.

The thing that I worry about the most right now is the motivations and actions of the primary character, Millicent. I can do just about anything I want with the other characters, but I have to be sure that Millicent is not too flat, and not just playing observer. In the first book, Millicent was an observer, standing in for the reader who is being introduced to this strange new world inside the toymaker mansion. She had some cleverness to demonstrate, but for the most part her decisions were guide ala deus ex machina by the General, Nobbins, and when you think of it, the house itself. This time around, Millicent needs to make some of her own decisions and needs to demonstrate more substance and less just following along as other people determine her fate.

This means more time for character development. For Millicent, this will come through inner conflict and decisions - she is young enough that the storyline itself is where we develop her character. The other principle characters, Nobbins, the Admiral and the General, can developed through more background storytelling.

Another thing I don't want to do is unbalance the story with the first book. In one sense, the readers expect something new out of a sequel, so you are forced to up the ante somewhat. This means at least as much action as the first book, and some humorous surprises. At the moment, the problems in the story have been more cereberal and less physical, something I need to tune before I finish. However, I am very worried that the final surprise action moment may be so over the top as to seem to cross genres. The first book had a little bit of wonder in it, but never went so far as to be completely physically impossible - just short of Willie Wonka (with vermicious knids and all that he stepped off into fantasy, really), but definitely not as realistically grounded as Little House on the Prairie. I definitely want the readr to feel as if they are talking about the same characters in the same universe playing by the same set of rules when they read this book.

Okay, back to writing.