Writing The Histories (or, Crafting Totally Real Histories is Hard)
Some of you may know that I have been working on this silly project called The Histories on and off for a while now. For those not familiar with it, I’ll just point you to the very accurate description on the wiki. This project is now closing in on 30,000 words, and it features content spanning centuries, numerous real and tru-real subjects and peoples, and events both grand and minor (many of which are legitimately real or extrapolated from things someone thinks is real). There are jokes and quirky references, and there are serious linkages to real history. All of that takes a lot of work and time, and so I figured I could do a fun little thing where I tell you about my writing process for every entry. So, let’s talk about writing process, shall we?
The Future Blogging Game Plan Thing: Opinions Welcome
As I mentioned on Twitter the other day, I’ve started putting together a new structure for my online writing. Today, I offer up one possible restructuring effort. Your opinions are always welcome, even if you fundamentally disagree with the whole endeavor. On a side note: I do plan to move this blog to its own website soon (to coincide with my own personal site). I don’t know if I will keep the World in the Satin Bag name, though I probably should. Here is the structure I’m considering: WISB would shift to an sf/f commentary and writing blog; most of what I’d offer here would be my semi-academic discussions, views on what’s happening in sf/f, views on sf/f, and general nonsense about my sad little writing career (which is frankly what this blog has mostly been anyway). Basically, this blog ceases to be a review blog and becomes more of a discussion blog that provides much of the same stuff I’ve always provided, but with a little more focus. All book reviews would move to The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog OR to review sites (Strange Horizons, etc.; I already have a review coming out through them soon) Totally Pretentious would become my “movie discussion” arena, since it’s a movie podcast and blog. This would include three specific elements:a) the podcast (more on that later)b) Retro Nostalgia: it will become a feature where I review an sf/f movie released 10/20/30/40/50+ years from a specific week or month (example: Ladyhawke was released in April 1985). I’ll just go back and forth through time by divisions of 10 :)!c) The 6 Continents Director Circle: a terrible title for a feature in which I explore the work of a single director, moving from continent to continent. This may come in the form of reviews or essays about the breadth of their work (from the perspective of a budding film critic and film scholar). I’m told by David Annandale that we might also include this as part of the podcast at a future point (more on that later). This would mean restructuring my Patreon so it focuses on the specific things I’m offering (the columns at TP and reviews at S&F). It would also mean effectively killing many of my current columns in favor for a smaller number of specific ones, which may or may not be the path I should take (or the expectation of readers). You are free to disagree if you really love something I do on WISB. Hell, you can disagree with this entire post if you so choose. It was also suggested to me that I should perhaps put more focus into my podcasting anyway, since that’s where I’m better known. And it’s true that I really love podcasting and would love to do more of it. I’m not sure how to incorporate that into the structure, though. Thoughts? My biggest concern with the new structure is this: it seems to diversify my writing across multiple spaces, which seems counter-intuitive to the project of focus. Is that just in my head, or is that fairly accurate? Should I just focus the columns on this blog and simply repeat a weekly “formula” on a consistent basis (three columns a week on MWF; every week…always)? Would that be more effective? Would that be better for my existing readership? Alright. The comments are all yours.
A Long List of Writing/Blogging Projects I Want to Do
As you may recall, I mentioned that I had started to reconsider the future of this blog and my various blogging/podcasting/writing projects. The conversation preceding and surrounding that post have led me here: a post about the things I would like to do. Obviously, I cannot do all of these things, but I know these are projects I want to complete or pursue at some point in my life. Your opinions on anything listed here is greatly appreciated. If anything leaps out at you as something you’d really be interested in, let me know in the comments. You’re also welcome to suggest things, as it’s possible I’ve forgotten something. Blogging Projects: Write more commentary on WISB — less so on controversies than on genre Create a steady, repeatably schedule of specific things for WISB Star Wars Extended Universe Re-read — reading, discussing, and reviewing the entire extended universe. The ENTIRE EU. In chronological order. I feel inclined towards this because the EU is, well, gone, and I think that is a travesty. SFF Film Odyssey — a broader take on the lackluster feature I’ve been running. Taking a play out of Jay Garmon’s suggestion, this would involve looking at sf/f films 10/20/30/40/50+ years in the past in some kind of order I’ve yet to determine. Perhaps by week (10 years ago this week…). Reviews and discussions of significant sf/f films (housed, I suspect, at Totally Pretentious). Director Explorations — reviewing every feature-length film released by a single director, old and new. I’ve talked about doing this already; I think it could be a lot of fun to do at Totally Pretentious. Space Opera Read Along (for the Fall) — I’m teaching a space opera course in the fall. Since I don’t often discuss older books on this blog, I thought that might be a cool thing to do in the fall. More book reviews — in combination with new and old. I do so much “new” reading for Skiffy and Fanty that I feel I’m missing out on a lot of older stuff, and I suspect some of you might actually care what I think about books 20 or so years removed. International SF/F Fan Survey — to get input from non-US fandom about the Hugo Award (perception, etc.); this isn’t specific to the SP/RP thing, though a question would be directed to that. I plan to get general feelings versus specific responses to contemporary controversies; the intent is to understand what folks outside of the States think about the award. Podcasting: Monetize The Skiffy and Fanty Show (yeah, I want to consider this now) Expand Totally Pretentious (and monetize so we can do more stuff) — David and I are talking about adding a second feature (Gap Fillers — where we alternate selecting a movie we think the other should see that they haven’t) and possibly adding more stuff in the future. Some of that would be solved by increasing the subscriber base, but the others would require funding it, I think. Start a writing podcast Start a semi-academic sf/f podcast called Opera Fantastika. Start a podcast about my grandmother’s crazy life (seriously, her life was full of weirdness and laughter and crazy) Note: to be clear — I don’t mean “monetize” in the sense of “I want to make money for myself.” For Skiffy and Fanty, monetizing wouldn’t be profitable for me anyway because I share the show with a lot of other people. But bringing in revenue for that show could mean we can get better recording equipment, attend more conventions, etc. Fiction: The Histories (blog novel) — a fictional history book detailing the real identity of Mike Underwood via an in-depth analysis of anthropological, photographic, and historical evidence. YA Space Opera Craziness — the novel I’ve been working on for a while, which I’ve tentatively described as two siblings — a tech-savvy genius and her wheelchair-using combat expert — go on a grand adventure through the universe, with wheelchair mecha, crazy technology, religious fanatics, mayhem, and wicked cool stunts. Camden in Nightface — “gritty” space opera which follows the leader of a revolutionary force who witnesses the total destruction of his homeworld and wages a terrorist campaign against a federation of Earth-aligned worlds. The MC is literally a terrorist, so it’s a bit of a challenge. Full Magic Jacket — urban fantasy about a guy who bonks his head after a drunken stupor one evening and awakes to find that not only can he see the supernatural, but also his cat can talk to him…and turns out to be the reincarnated soul of an Egyptian pharaoh. Editing Projects: The Evil Anthology of Evil SFF — a collection of subversive science fiction and fantasy addressing evil in all its complicated machinations (at least two authors expressed interest in this, by the way, so I think it’s likely something like this could happen) The Secret Cabal — a collection of equally subversive sf/f on bigotry in its overt and subconscious forms House Cleaning: Finally move WISB to its own website. Finally figure out what WISB will become… And that’s it…for now.
On the Future of This Blog and My Bid for World Domination
Earlier today, I had a rather revealing conversation with Jay Garmon, Fred Kiesche, and Paul Weimer about Patreon, blogging, and being successful at both (Patrick Hester was also there, but he just wanted to talk about donuts…). As you know, I have a Patreon page. Over the last week or so, I’ve been wondering why it hasn’t been more successful given that this blog does have a few hundred readers and that I think I’m providing good content for sf/f-minded folks. Granted, I never expected anything nearly as successful as Kameron Hurley’s $800-and-climbing Patreon page for obvious reasons: she’s selling fiction (I’m not, though I wish I were); she’s sf/f famous (I’m kinda not really); and she has enough follows to drown a human being in a pool of bodies (I don’t). But I thought it might be a little more successful. So, I started asking questions on Twitter to see why that might be. Fred and Jay were the most vocal speakers on the subject, and each imparted upon me a set of core ideas that I realized I had never really addressed: There must be a focus (what you’re interested in beyond some generalized “thing”) There must be a “hook” (what makes it different from everything else) There must be a reason for reading (why should anyone care what you think) It dawned on me, then, that I didn’t have a focus. This blog covers just about everything: books, movies, TV, comics, SF/F controversies, writing, and other rambles. It isn’t really about anything except in the broadest sense. It’s about SF/F, which is sort of like saying “this is a blog about sports.” And in trying to be about SF/F, I’ve created something that is about too many darn things. For one man, that’s kind of ridiculous. After all, I am not Tor.com, which can talk about dozens of things because it has dozens of contributors. I am not SF Signal, which can do the same. I am not Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, Fantasy Faction, SF Site, and so on and so forth. But I’m also not Adam Werthead, who covers bits of sf/f news, or Ian Sales, who maintains SFF Mistressworks, or Foz Meadows, who provides in-depth criticism of media and SF/F events from a particular feminist perspective, or Kameron Hurley, who does the same, and so on and so forth. I am trying to do all the things but essentially not doing any one (or two) thing(s) particularly well. That’s been a huge problem for this blog. I have so many interests that I want to do so many different projects. But I don’t have time to cover everything I want to cover in a year, and so I end up sort of half-ass covering a few of the things I love. The SFF Film Odyssey should have been completed last year, but I’m still inching my way along because I never focused on it. All these side columns are great ideas, but for one person, they’re kind of impossible to manage if you have two teaching jobs and a PhD to finish. Don’t get me started on my lackluster reviewing habits… So I started thinking about what I wanted to do as a blogger, what I wanted to do as a podcaster, and what I wanted to do as a writer and Patreon user. And it came to me that maybe it’s time for something to change around here. Maybe this blog has been stagnant for so long because I didn’t know how to make it better or to move on to the next thing or to focus on anything. I wanted to do all the things and I couldn’t admit to myself that, well, I just can’t. I can’t do all the things. Now I have ideas. Many of them. And I would love your input if you’re a reader of this blog. Here are some disjointed thoughts on what I might do for the future: The Thinning Package: Open a new page which will focus on a specific thing (SF/F Film Odyssey type stuff, for example) Change WISB to a personal webpage for my writing self (still sf/f-ish, but not focused in the same way) Move most of my review-related blogging to The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog The Shifting Package: Move my SF/F Film Odyssey and film-relate stuff to the Totally Pretentious blog and run a specific act there (something like the SF/F Film Odyssey on a regular basis) Change WISB to a personal webpage and a space for critical reflections on genre happenings (which would otherwise be poorly suited to The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog) Move everything else to S&F as above The Ultra Thinning Package: Kill everything I’m currently doing on WISB and shift my focus to one specific, regularly occurring thing (SF/F Film Odyssey type stuff, perhaps) Move reviews to S&F as above SF/F criticism mostly disappears because S&F isn’t really the place for my ranting nonsense. Note: obviously, I need to get this darn website off of Blogger and into something that looks, well, up to date for the year we’re actually in. Those are just some ideas. I don’t have the answers yet because I haven’t a clue what do. I’m only just beginning to think about how to change what I’m doing to make it better, not just in terms of the quality, but also in terms of my ability to “do” it. And I’m still not certain what I want to do when I set down a focus, except that I think it would be stupid of me to leave out my academic side. What I do know at this moment is that I can’t do everything, even if I would like to. I just don’t have the resources, and I think trying to do too many things is ultimately damaging my ability to do anything else well. The comments are now yours. Do let me know what you think about
The Fictioning: I actually wrote something! Ahaha!
If you missed it on Twitter, I actually wrote some new fiction last night for the first time in months. I’ve been fiddling with the idea for a YA space opera featuring a wheelchair bound combat expert and his tech-savvy sibling. I won’t ruin the plot, but I will say this: there will be a mecha wheelchair, space battles, and good old adventure with a healthy side of character development. And if that sounds of interest, here are the first few paragraphs in rough draft form (click to view a larger version): Now back to writing stuff…
On Procrastination: The Evil One
It’ll come as no surprise to anyone that I have a procrastination problem. As you may well know, I’m working on my PhD in English, which requires me to write a 200-250 page dissertation. My dissertation is mostly pretty awesome: my first few chapters explore the work of Tobias Buckell, Nalo Hopkinson, and Karen Lord; the last few chapters explore early Caribbean writings in dialogue with contemporary Caribbean science fiction (particularly Michel Maxwell Philip’s Emmanuel Appadocca and Mary Seacole’s Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands). Needless to say, I’m actually stoked about the project as a whole, even if I’m having the hardest time actually writing the bloody thing.