Never mind that I didn't mention this on Day One, Two, or Three. I only decided to do this on Day Three, having accidentally started on it two days before. From now until circumstances prevent it, I intend to spend at least an hour a night working on one or more of the Mâvarin books. The last two nights it's been an hour and a half; I didn't think to time myself on nights one and two.

The bulk of Mages of Mâvarin - a thousand pages, give or take a few - and some of Heirs as well, come from a period of about two and a half years circa 1999-2002. I was writing or editing every single night during that era, and hanging out on the old AOL fantasy & sf writers' board with Patricia C. Wrede and a passel of fellow unknowns. I only missed two days in all that time: the day I got my gall bladder out, and the night I was on suicide watch after my friend's husband ditched her. Most days I was handwriting scenes at lunchtime, and typing or revising at night.

Then in late 2002 I went back to school, and had a ton of homework to do, including a paper a week. Suddenly I had to channel all that time and effort and discipline to GEN 300 and the courses that followed. I didn't have time to put into the novels while doing all that, and in any case I was kind of stuck on the handful of scenes still needed for Mages. So I mostly stopped working on it. It's been three and a half years since I graduated from UoP, but since then I've spent my evenings blogging and doing other online stuff. Although I've worked on the books intermittently, and submitted Heirs to two publishers, I've never gotten back into the routine of writing and editing fiction on a nightly basis.

So here's the deal. I know from bitter experience that I'm not terribly good at carrying out my big plans and grand promises after I announce them. So I'm not promising that this will last. But right now I'm unemployed, and I'm getting adequate sleep; I'm interested, and I have the time. There is no reason I can't get some editing in on a daily basis, at least until I get another job. After that, we'll see.

Maybe this is the start of another long, productive streak of continuous effort.

Karen

Ch	Title	Words	Pages	From	To
1	The Tengrem	10,547	33	1	33
2	The Truth	14,584	46	34	79
3	Appearances	15,256	50	80	129
4	Prophecies and Revelations	12,481	43	130	172
5	Mages and Messages	13,011	44	173	216
6	Two Princesses	11,468	39	217	255
7	The Road and the City	10,800	37	256	292
8	Transformations	10,376	35	293	327
9	Family	10,147	34	328	361
10	Magic	8,907	30	362	391
11	Mind and Matter	12,526	42	392	433
12	Rescuers	13,543	46	434	479
13	War and Peace	12,959	45	480	524
	totals	156,605	524
	averages	12,046.5	40.31

Now to sell the dang thing!

Where I am in all the writing-related stuff I should be working on:

Heirs of Mâvarin - have not heard back from Tor; it's been 14 months now. According to what I've been reading, I should count that as a rejection and query widely. Haven't done that yet.

Mages of Mâvarin (trilogy) - I'm on chapter two in my edit, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Just last night I did a light edit on Chapter 33. This time I'll be putting chapters in a file as I finish, so that I don't keep starting over with Chapter One.

The Mâvarin Revolutions - still on Chapter One, but it's growing. It's up to 14 pages now, probably a third of that typed in the past week or so. This morning I planned the next bit in the "A Fire in Mâvarin" sequence as I walked to One Stop Automotive.

To Rule Mâvarin (alternate title Prince of Mâvarin (prequel) - stalled out for now.

I  haven't been posting much on LJ recently, but I hope to start using it for benchmarking my progress.  This is #1 in the series.

I expect I'll write about this on both blogs tonight. I was going to try not to be too repetitious, but on second thought I think I'll just crosspost, mostly.

There is a Doctor Who episode, "The Girl in the Fireplace," in which the Doctor visits Madame de Pompadour at key moments throughout her short life.  For him it all happens in less than a day, but, as she remarks, she experiences the relationship from the perspective of "the slow path."  My contrasting experiences with my last two submissions of Heirs of Mâvarin has me thinking about the fast path and the slow path, and which one is better  in this particular context.

      A timeline of the slow path:

• February 20, 2006: mailed cover letter, three chapters and synopsis of Heirs of Mâvarin to Tor Books in NYC.
• February 23, 2006: the submission package arrived at Tor, according to the USPS, and was presumably consigned to the slush pile.
• February 28, 2006: eight days have passed, and the book hasn't been rejected yet, this time around.  The last time I mailed it out (an earlier draft back in the late 1990s), it was back in my mailbox exactly one week later. 
• June 23, 2006: the four month anniversary of the slush pile arrival marks the first date I can reasonably think that I might hear back on the submission, based on the "at least four to six months" mentioned in the Tor FAQ. Nothing happens.
• August 23, 2006: six months out, the "at least" part of that phrase kicks in.  Hey, it doesn't say "at most."  I consider whether it's time to query about the status of the submission, but decide to hold off.
• January 1, 2007: someone I admire but have never met offers to ask PNH of Tor about my submission. I say yes, and thank him in advance.
  
• January 4, 2007: I follow up by snail mail, politely asking the status of my submission.
• January 7, 2007 (date approximate): someone I admire but have never met actually does ask PNH about my submission.
• January 9, 2007: my contact reports back that PNH "did recall" the submission.
• February 23, 2007: I celebrate the one-year anniversary of the submission's arrival on the slush pile by designing a humorous anniversary card. I decide that the longer I wait, the more likely it is that it will not be rejected out of hand.  It occurs to me that I once sold a logic problem to Dell over two years after submitting it.
• March 20, 2007: I celebrate the 13-month anniversary of the package's initial mailing by emailing a query to an agent who prefers to operate by email.

     A timeline of the fast path:

• March 13, 2007: I read an article from Writer's Digest Online about agents seeking new clients.  I save the info to a file, narrowed down to the three that match my needs (i.e., they handle Fantasy, SF and YA)
• March 17, 2007: after working on it in my head for a few days, I write Version 1 of the query, and send to a few friends for feedback.
• March 20, 2007, 8:54 PM:  After good advice from my friends, careful study of the agent's guidelines and multiple revisions, I email the query. I spend the rest of the evening updating my mavarin.com entry page and my online bio, in case the agent peeks at either.
  
• March 21, 2007, 7:39 PM: I get an emailed "standard rejection letter," identical to the one the agent posted on her blog sometime in the past week. It's a nicely worded, encouraging letter, but it's still a form rejection, the same one I would have received had I sent a 20-page, misspelled horror of a query promoting a gerbil cookbook, a foundation document for a new religion, and fifty other unlikely projects.

So which is better, the fast path or the slow path?  It's kind of hard to be sure, because I'm still on the slow path. If it ends the same way as the fast path, with a form rejection and no feedback, then it will be a far greater disappointment than the one received in less than a day. But like that logic problem, my slush pile submission may be making its glacial way toward a good result.  Let's hope so, anyway.

As for the quick path, I'm thinking, as it begins to rain here, that it is possible to find at the end of it, not a pot of gold or even a rainbow, but a pewter lining in place of a silver one. At least I didn't have much time to get my hopes up.  At least I've now worked out a pretty good query to send out, even though it didn't do the job this time.  At least I have a few more places to try, and no more need to wait for this one to respond before trying the next.

And maybe it doesn't matter what I think, either of the fast path or the slow one.  It's not as if I get to choose which one to travel on. Some publishers and agents tend to respond quickly, others slowly.  Some individual examples may be highly variable in this respect, depending on the submission and the circumstances. Even if it is possible to find out which publishers and agents respond more quickly or more slowly than others, the info shouldn't be a deciding factor as one prepares to address the envelope or the email. I will gladly wait two years for a "yes" answer from a good agent or a mass market publisher, if that's what it takes. If it's a no, then sooner is better, but it's not something to aim for.  Better to get on with editing Mages and writing Revolutions, and try not to obsess about timelines. The reply will get here when it gets here. 

Dang, I'm depressed.

Today was the one year anniversary of my three chapters, synopsis and cover letter for Heirs of Mâvarin arriving on the slush pile at Tor Books in New York. I was reminded of this fact in a dream this morning, in which Patrick Nielsen Hayden got annoyed with me for temporarily storing ham and cheese in a Tor mailbox, and announced he would have nothing more to do with me. I don't have the nerve to do it, but for months I've been fantasizing that I could mark this occasion with an anniversary card, something like this:

The reason I wouldn't send it is not that I think Patrick and Teresa wouldn't enjoy the joke. They might indeed find it funny, which is why I have no fear about posting it where they may possibly find out about it and take a peek. But actually sending such a thing, as a physical card or in an email, strikes me as the kind of unprofessional attention-grabbing stunts that Carol Pinchefsky writes about in her posting "It Came from the Slush Pile." Unfavorable attention on me instead of favorable attention toward the three chapters and synopsis is the last thing I want right now.  Yes, I do wish PNH would decide, and soon, to ask for the rest of the manuscript.  But if a little nudge from John Scalzi and a polite follow-up letter from me haven't hurried things along, a joke card certainly won't do so, except possibly to encourage the issuance of a rejection letter. 

In a way it's fitting that I be made to wait for this all-important reply. There's a reason why the Beatles' lyric, "It took me years to write, will you take a look?" resonates so strongly for me.  Heirs of Mâvarin did take me years to write.  Too many years, really, but that's what happens when a book slowly teaches you how to write it over the course of a few decades. Unless the bottom suddenly falls out of the fantasy fiction market, I don't really mind waiting a few more years for a publisher to buy, print and distribute my beloved first novel. Heck, it gives me more time to work on the sequels!

On the other hand, if this long wait for a response ends in a printed form rejection, I fully expect to cry for a week before sending it out again.

Karen

Well, this book, The Mâvarin Revolutions, is officially underway.  The first  scene I wrote months ago.  The second one I started in my notebook several weeks back over a plateful of "yummy yummy chicken," and finished this afternoon in my fiction blog. The third scene started to come into my head a day or two ago. and began the transition to paper and pixels late this afternoon.  I've even had some ideas for the book's main plotlines, which frankly doesn't happen for me very often.  Usually these things only emerge from the fog when I get there.

Then tonight I got distracted for an entire evening by this long thread on Making Light. Dang. The gist of it: some woman promoted herself as an Editor on the Inside, whereas her only credits are in non-paying literary fiction circles.  TNH called her on it and she got nasty, and then some proxy or sock puppet got even nastier - but meantime the not-really-an-insider's "Pitch Bitch" blog was taken down.  My old thorn Mrk popped up to pitch some pseudonymous bile, which was deleted by the time I got there.  Just as well.  At least he hasn't taken his attack dog routine back to Wikipedia this time, for which I'm grateful.  Then the conversation, as it so often does, turned to Inigo and Westley's sword techniques, Roman horsemanship and the question of whether calling something "vanilla" is an insult to the subject or an unfair denigration of the flavoring extract.  Fun stuff!

Still, it's late again, and I must sleep.  All I want to say here is this:  the fiction is flowing again.  And that is officially a Good Thing.

Karen

What Fantasy Archetype Are you?
The Mentor You are the prestigous Mentor! You're akin to Gandalf (Lord of The Rings), Merlin (ARthurian Legend), Obi Wan Kenobi (Star Wars), Aslan (Narnia), Door (Neverwhere), Dumbledore (Harry Potter) and Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander (Wizard's First Rule). You are wise and knowing, and know that there is not much time left for the Unlikely Hero to defeat The Totally Wicked Villain. Only you know the true motives and past of The Villain, so it's up to you to teach the Unlikely Hero all he has to know. Be careful as you'll invariably regret not telling The Unlikely Hero things sooner rather than later. You like teaching and often care very much for others.
Take The Quiz Now!	Quizzes by myYearbook.com

***

A few days ago at the Outpost I blogged the New Year's Resolution stuff, and it was mostly about writing.  I had some good news on this front today - not the big news, but, well, read the comments to that entry and see what I mean. I'm going to follow through myself, too, though, and write the snail mail letter in a moment. Between a live-and-in-person reminder and my letter, maybe I'll finally hear from Tor soon.  My biggest fear it that it was rejected months and months ago but the response was lost in the mail.  My biggest hope is that it's either just waiting its turn in a long queue, and will now get special attention, and they'll like it, and I'll finally be on my way.  There's no reason that can't be true, based on what little I know of the situtation.  I hope I hope I hope!

The other thing I'm going to do here is simplify things a bit.  Rather than feel guilty about all the blogs and journals I don't read, I'm going to unfriend and unsubscribe a few. That doesn't mean they're not interesting or well written by good people I like.  It's a question of time.  Right now I'm reading some of my very favorite blogs once a week or once every two weeks, or, you know, never.  I may do better if the list is shorter.  Here on LJ, there's someone on my Friends list who writes long posts more than once a day, and my less frequently-posting friends get pushed off the page before I get there.  So the prolific, angry young nephew of my long-dead boyfriend leaves the Friends page today.  Sorry, Mike.  I wish you well, and all success with your writing and your class work and your love life.

(Ten minutes later: Mike is back on the friends list already, for several reasons. The main one is that I can now filter the Friends page to view different groups of people.  So Mike gets his own group, the group blogs get another, and so on.  So the rare flower journal entries will now be findable, I don't have to dump anything, and everybody wins.  Yay!)

Karen

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Baroness Karen the Abstemious of Similar Ealand Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Abstemious.  Interesting. If you're talking about drinking and certain other things.  it fits.  But in the bigger picture, temperance and moderation in all things, so not.

Via Aurora Walking Vacation.

And to those who wonder: not a peep from Tor. Ten months now.

Happy New Year!  The Baroness and I promise to do better in 2007.

Karen

P.S. Great gag from an episode of Top Cat (we finally have Boomerang): one of T.C.'s gang is reading a book with a plot that wanders all over the place.  Let's see iif I can remember the title correctly: Under A Bridge with Dick and Harry. I would amend it to Under a Bridge: Dick 'n' Harry.  What was T.C.'s friend really reading?  Hint: it begins with an aardvark.

Subject: Happy Half Anniversary to my Slush Pile Submission

Dear Patrick et al.:

Greetings from Tucson, where the monsoon is still, um, monsooning. According to the postal service, Tor received my cover letter, three chapters and synopsis six months ago this week. I'm far from panicked about this, but it's time for a follow-up inquiry.

The book's title is Heirs of Mâvarin. The manuscript was in a large Priority Mail envelope, sent February 21, 2006. An equally large SASE was enclosed.

I have a longish list of theories about why I haven't heard back yet, but it's less entertaining and informed than the equivalent list in "Slushkiller," so we'll skip it. I'm hoping that the slush pile is simply more backed up than usual - or, better yet, that my submission has been opened, perused and reported on favorably, and now awaits an editor's attention.

When you get a moment, will you please check on the status of my manuscript and let me know where we are in the process? Thanks!

Karen Funk Blocher
(contact info)

or...

First, let me get this meme code pasted in:

Greed:	Very Low
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Very Low
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Very Low
Pride:	Very Low

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

Gee, gluttony and sloth. That was predictable. Enough said.

I am writing again, which is to say that I'm getting some new edits in on Mages from Mâvarin. I'm on Chapter Three now. That's not at all impressive when you consider there are 35 chapters in all, but it's a start. It's also occurred to me this past week that despite my relative inactivity on the book(s), the overall manuscript has changed quite a bit in the two years since I sent printouts and CDs to beta readers. It will change more as I go on. The trade-off is that the fiction blog is languishing. I need to get Jace and Sandy moving again, but somehow the evenings go by without my gtiving either of them a visit.

As far as the book editing goes, I've made one change in my working methods. For the past four years or so, I've been printing out chapters, reading and hand-editing them, and, in theory, entering some version of those edits into the Word files - later. The problem was, I constantly lost track of where I was in the process, not to mention all those messy loose printouts. There's no good place to put them by my computer, so entering the edits was where I had the bottleneck. I ended up starting over, lots of times, until I was sick to death of the first five pages of Chapter One. It is better, though.

So that didn't work, and I'm trying something else. Except when I come to a scene that only exists in handwritten form (I think I still have a few of these), I'm editing directly in Word now. Sure, it means I'm stuck at my computer, but I'm there all night anyway. Making the changes in one pass instead of two might mean that the manuscript will be one draft less polished, but it doesn't seem to be working out that way so far. I can change the same passage five times in five minutes it necessary, and never run out of white space on the page. If Sara or Sarah is online, I can even run each version of the paragraph by a faithful beta reader for advice. Yeah, this is working better.

Well, except for the part where I'm sidetracked by Wikipedia.

Karen

On Saturday, Tor will have had my three-chapters-and-synopsis for 5 months.  I choose to call that good news.  It means one of eight things:

1. It's still sitting unopened in the slush pile.
2. It's made it past minimal scrutiny (it's typed and has a SASE, etc.) and awaits further examination.
3. A first reader looked at the first page or so and didn't hate it, and will look at it in more detail later.
4. A first reader actually liked it, but hasn't written a report on the submission yet.
5. A first reader has written it up and passed it on to Patrick (or possibly Teresa, or someone else), who will look at it eventually.
6. Patrick has glanced at it, but hasn't decided yet whether to ask for the rest of the book.
7. A rejection is on its way.
8. A request for the rest of the book is on its way.

Only one of these options would actually be bad news.

Karen

The previous meme reminded me of a web widget called Googlism.  It provides a search result for "Yourword is" in the form of an amusing list, sans links.  Unfortunately, it doesn't give you a list unless it finds lot of results for the word or word string.  That thing still doesn't have anything to say about Karen Blocher, Karen Funk Blocher or Mavarin, but plain vanilla ""Karen" yields these highlights, which I've turned into a poem:

Googlism for: karen

karen is dedicated to providing paper chase solutions and helping
karen is in, karen is back
karen is an “active villager” at the eev
karen is home, karen is right
karen is miss february 2002

karen is eller lag en film uten sanseobjekt
karen is the coolest, karen is lief
karen is currently planning trips to these cities
karen is looking, karen is healed
karen is out of the office

karen is experienced in providing advice for people of all backgrounds and situations
karen is out, karen is exceptional
karen is speaking in an area near you
karen is, karen is famous
karen is open and willing to listen to criticism

karen is in ingenting; gjør noe ; sover; ser i kameraet; filmer med kameraet
karen is that bad cop,karen is a christian
karen is originally from sea isle city
karen is a strong, karen is correct
karen is a professional researcher

karen is commissioned by annika Öhland to create 99 snowfalls
karen is *stargazed*, karen is fifty
karen is a singer/songwriter
karen is home, karen is out
karen is twice as old as lori

karen is an active contributor to her community
karen is right, karen is looking
karen is a friend who is there for you always
karen is a self, karen is a soft
karen is a member of lots of things

karen is passionate about making a difference in people’s lives
karen is a kind person, karen is fifty
karen is very special and caring
karen is supportive through life
karen is so precious for me

karen is always interested in purchasing vintage barbie®doll
karen is, karen is in
karen is a massage therapist for horse and rider
karen is back, karen is a little slut
karen is sovner hvorfor kutt

karen is shown with a large gather of molten glass on the end of her punty
karen is killed", karen is still in danger
karen is trying to spook me? hehe
karen is killed", karen is healed
karen is speaking in an area near you

karen is experienced in providing advice for people of all backgrounds and situations
karen is a christian, karen is right
karen is also very supportive of the things i do
karen is home, karen is out
karen is a friend who is there for you always

karen is an “active villager” at the eev
karen is the coolest, karen is that bad cop
karen is out of the office
karen is back, karen is exceptional
karen is on top of the world

karen is an active contributor to her community
karen is fifty, karen is back
karen is having a bad
karen is healed, karen is killed"
karen is intruiged by her shoelaces

karen is available for private consultations in the los angeles
karen is a kind person, karen is a soft
karen is very special and caring
karen is a member of lots of things
karen is speaking in an area near you

karen is waiting for the lord view priestess's portfolio
karen is *stargazed*, karen is a self
karen is a professional researcher
karen is a strong, karen is making very
karen is the woman of my dreams

karen is influenced by everyone who truly loves their work
karen is author, karen is an author
karen is fixated on some subset of sentient beings
karen is at work, karen is making very
karen is very talented and very funny

karen is a woman who seems to be the only character to have relatively come to terms
karen is a self,  karen is da bestest babe
karen is gonna kill me for this but haha
karen is a kind person
karen is very special and caring
karen is on top of the world

karen is very talented and very funny
karen is, karen is this girl years later
karen is an author, karen is still in danger
karen is an active contributor to her community
karen is responsible for the, karen is healed
karen is speaking in an area near you

karen is dedicated to providing paper chase solutions and helping
karen is a picture, karen is fifty
karen is supportive through life
karen is safe in her home, karen is right
karen is gonna kill me for this but haha
karen is the glue that holds our little ship together

Yes, the page repeats certain phrases a lot.  No, I didn't use all of them.
The fun part is that I think a few of them were actually about me this time.

Karen is off to write Jace's next letter

Dr. James Wilson 50% Eccentricity, 10% Confidence, 70% Kindness

Congratulations, you're Dr. James Wilson! You've got the tough role of being the conscience and best friend to Dr. Greg House, which proves that you must be secretly (or openly) insane. You're always a good person for providing advice, witty remarks, free lunches, lectures, and (wanted or unwanted) psychoanalysis. You are about as confident as the average person, but you have some big issues with yourself, and may have problems living up to the ideals you have in your head. You do really care about other people, though, even if you sometimes express that caring by trying to get into their pants.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 55% on Eccentricity You scored higher than 0% on Confidence You scored higher than 72% on Kindness

Link: The House, MD Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Yes, I know I'm neglecting LJ terribly. Give me 30 hour days or eight day weeks, and I may have time for it. Or not. Still, I expect that if I can get back into editing and rewriting Mages, I'll have something to say here again. It might also help if two people with the letters S-A-R-A in their names posted here regularly, as they used to do.

Karen

Okay, so nobody commented on the Writer's Weekly Question essay thingy I slaved over on Monday. Did anyone read it? I have no idea. That's what I get for putting it on the LJ instead of the Outpost, but I had toi do it. This is what Inspirations is for, aside from the occasional meme. This is where I'm supposed to be writing about writing.

Now here it is Friday (actually Saturday, because it's past midnight now), and Jess has posted a new question, inspired by my latest Harlan Ellison encounter:

Writer's Weekly Question #15:
Name a few famous writers you have had an up-close-and-personal encounter with. Did the encounter have an impact on you and your writing in some way? If so, how?

I could write a whole series a posts answering this, and probably have. Heck, I haven't even exhaused the subject of my experiences with Harlan Ellison yet. But yes, I've met other writers over the years, and yes, they've had an effect. In brief:

• Robin Scott Wilson co-founded the Clarion SF Writer's Workhsop. He taught the first week of Clarion '77, the year I was there.I actually don't remember anything specific that I'm sure he said and nnot somebody else, but it was all very informative and encouraging at the time. He may habe been the one who said that "The truth is no excuse." The fact that something has happened in real life doesn't make it believable in fiction. You have to make it work dramatically. Good advice, that.  There were a numbers of good bits like that at Clarion, catch phrases encapulating little principles, traps and techniques.  29 years later, though, I can't be sure which writers were behind which bon mots.
  
• Peter S. Beagle taught the third week of Clarion that year. Aside from Harlan, he was the writer I most wanted to meet. This was because a) I loved his books, and b) he was a fantasy writer, and I was already at work on my own fantasy novel. You know the one. But crushingly, Beagle didn't like my opening chapters of The Tengrim Sword, as it was called then. Worse, he couldn't even tell me why he didn't like it! He couldn't tell me much of anything, really. He was mostly an instinctive writer,not a technician. He had no advice for me, no encouragement. I did enjoy hearing him read from his work, though. And it was a bit of a revelation to know what someone can write that well without having specific, objective techniques to pass on to others. On the other hand, I heard that at least one other Clarionite learned a lot from him. Why couldn't I do so, too?
• Algis J Budrys (shown at right) - writer, reviewer, critic - taught the fourth week. We called him Ayjay. One of my favorite bits of plotting advice comes from him, I think: "Get your protagonist up a tree; throw rocks at him; get him out of the tree." He liked what I'd done so far on the novel, which did a lot to repair the damage to my confidence that Pete Beagle had caused. Another interestiing thing about him was that he'd written a book I liked, called The Falling Torch. What I like about it was that the protagonist spent two thirds of the book trying to decide what to do. Once he finally decided to go to war, I turned the page, and the fighting was already basically over! I loved the idea that the decisuion was the important thing, not the actual battle. But Ayjay told me an editor had cut a third of the book!
  
• Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight (he's the guy with the beard, right) taught the last two weeks together. I don't remember a darn thing Kate taught, but she cooked a great London Broil for John and me one night. in aid of our Atkins diet. Damon seemed to contradict a lot of the writing advice we'd had to that point, even some of his own. He also discouraged the heck out of me when he said he had theimpression that Mâvarin ended "ten feet beyond the road." I disagreed strongly, but the truth is that I wasn't big on concrete detail in those days. I've worked hard over the years to overcome my talking heads syndrome, in large part because of Damon's remark. Damon also taught about the business side of writing, which I found more helpful at the time than the actual writing advice. Oddly, though, I've since bought a book of Damon's writing advice, and it all resonates with me, nearly thirty years later.
  

I'll probably come back to this subject later. I have more to say, but I'm very sleepy now.

Karen

It's time to resurrect my poor, neglected LJ with the Writer's Weekly Question:

Writer's Weekly Question #14

How much do you borrow from your favorite writers, and how much is actually your very own ideas? At what point does "borrowing" become "plagiarism?"

Okay, I am NOT amused.  I just wrote practically a disseration on this subject.  What did LJ save?  Nothing after the question itself!

I'll try again. 

It's often said that there are only seven plots.  The actual list varies, and some writers have managed to reduce it to just two or three items, but the basic concept holds true.  If you define it all broadly enough, all fiction can be lumped into just a few categories, covering types of conflict as well as such themes as transformation, sacrifice, the journey and so on.  At this level of abstraction, everyone is traveling a well-worn road.  Plagiarism is not even an issue.  The use of archetypal themes is generally thought to be a good thing, because it tickles the mind in a certain way, tapping into things that have interested human beings for millenia.  In Heirs of Mâvarin alone, I can find transformation, the quest, coming of age, man vs. man, the "brave little tailor" and so on.  I didn't put most of those things there on purpose, but that's the beauty of archetypes and myth in fiction.  They tend to crop up unbidden, enriching the story.

If you're writing in a particular genre, the territory inevitably becomes even more familiar.  A fantasy novel will involve magic, science fiction will have extrapolated science or technology, and a bildungroman will have a person moving into adulthood.  Here's where things can start to seem a little derivative, but ultimately it's considered okay to a few stock elements, as long as they're presented in an original way.

As we move from the general to the specific, things become increasingly problematic.  It's okay to have a mysterious stranger help your everyman hero.  But if that stranger is hidden royalty, and worse yet a Ranger, you're moving beyond archetype into imitation of a specific work.  You can write about a high school student who finds out that she's really a princess, but if she starts keeping a diary and taking princess lessons from her grandmother, Meg Cabot will have every right to get cranky.   (Paul Park's princess, shown at right, owes nothing to Cabot's Princess Mia.)

The particular case that's in the news goes way beyond this.  Plagiarism consists of the work's actual presentation being similar or identical to the work being copied.  Writing about wookies and light sabres without permission from Lucusfilm falls under this heading, but generally it comes down to the unattributed use of another writer's words.  The college student whose book was just pulled by her publisher used slightly-reworded passages from at least three books by at least two other authors.  That is unquestionably plagiarism.  The only major defense is "unintentional plagiarism," which is what George Harrison claimed when it was pointed out that My Sweet Lord was extremely similar in melody to He's So Fine by the Chiffons.   There are legitimately times when we're not sure whether a particular turn of phrase is ours alone, or half-remembered from something we read or heard.  But when it happens over and over, in reasonably large blocks of text, it's unlikely to be accidental.

I should also distinguish between informal nonfiction, formal essays and fiction in this regard.  In my blogging I often use brief quotations of familiar phrases without attribution, such as "amazingly amazing" (a Hitchhiker's Guide reference) or "D'oh!" (a reference to Homer Simpson's "annoyed grunt"). I expect most of my readers to recognize such references without my pedantically calling attention to them.  The web is full of geeky references to Douglas Adams, The Simpsons and other bits of popular culture.  But in a formal or scholarly work, such a reference needs a citation, if it's used at all.  Similarly, a fictional character may reasonably make a brief reference to popular culture, as a way of showing that character's hipness or geekiness.  It happened all the time in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  If it's short enough, it doesn't need a citation, but a longer passage may require permission and an acknowledgement.  And if the character says "D'oh!" all the time, is bald, lives for beer and doughnuts and works at a nuclear power plant...well, you'd better be either writing parody or on a certain show's writing staff.  Otherwise, that "D'oh!" is probably going to cost you some dough!

(Okay, that was lame.  I think I had a better ending the first time around.  Ah, well.)

Karen

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from. And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi. Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics... Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

via DesLily.

K.

I spent hours writing a long entry here about who qualifies for the title "writer," but I ended up moving it to Outpost.  So instead I'll just direct you to it over there, and point out one more thing.

I was looking earlier tonight for any quotes I might be able to find from Patricia C. Wrede to the effect that writers have to write.  I'm pretty sure she's said this, but I didn't find it tonight.  What I did find, though, was a page of quotes, many of them from her on the subject of writing.  Go read it.  It's all good stuff:

Writing Echo Quotation File Part VI (Weems - Wrede)

Karen

NOW, when it's too late, I read the submission guidelines by the person who will actually see my manuscript in the slush pile. I followed the posted ones - really, I did! - but argh! It's not in Courier New, and the synopsis isn't double-spaced, and I didn't use a rubber band, and my three chapters are twice as long as the 60 page maximum she wants to see.

And I've got the stress test in the morning. It's safe to say I've got the stress part working already.

Karen

John Scalzi has found another link to another  web widget, this one a Science Fiction Plot Generator.   I can't say I'm impressed.  It's basically a Madlib, with lists of words plugged into the following framework:

A (adjective) (kind of person) is (gerund) (situation) in a (adjective) (place).  His/her (home locale) is destroyed by a (adjective) (villian or disaster).  With the help of a (adjective) (type of person), he/she must first (cliche action) in order to avert disaster and save (social unit).

The results are more disjointed than amusing, I'm afraid.  So I wrote one of my own instead:

A resourceful data-blogger is synthesizing endo-knowledge in the Martian Googleplex.  His doctoral thesis is destroyed by a sentient virus.  With the help of mutant dog, he must first negotiate a treaty with the virus colony in order to avert disaster and save his swim team.
 
Eh.  It's still not very interesting.

So where's the fantasy plot generator?  Well, let's see if I can Google one up.  Well, okay, this one's kind of neat:

Serendipity: http://nine.frenchboys.net/

This person has generators for people names, place names, character descriptions, treasures, and lots of other stuff., including a

Fantasy Plotter

Now we're talkin'. 

A charming prince befriends a beautiful unicorn, and pandemonium ensues.
A beautiful demigoddess and a orphan seek a legendary sword in this tale of a heroic quest.
A brash elf and a mermaid seek a legendary god in this tale of adventure.
A mad farmer and a witch seek a legendary grail in this tale of silliness.
A mysterious pixie and a prince seek a legendary grail in this tale of danger.
In this story, dwarves and peasants clash with a heroic dwarf stuck in the middle.

And you can even flesh it out with a

Plot Twist Generator

What you need now is an interdimensional portal.

Oh, ouch.  There's the second two-thirds of Mages of Mâvarin, reduced to nine words, six of which don't count.  If it comes up with something about a magic coin or amnesia next, I will be most put out:

At this juncture a perky librarian arrives and calls the FBI.
Suddenly a ghost grabs your protagonist by the shirtfront.
The scene changes, and a street vendor arrives and starts to gossip.
What you need now is the Loch Ness Monster.
Without warning a macho cashier arrives and ransacks the building.

Oh, well, that's all right then.

And of course there's a title generator.  Sara came up with a goodie:

Autumn, King, and God

Can you imagine introducing this trio around?  "Um, this is the incarnation of the season Autumn, here on the left, and the guy in the middle is named King, and he also is a king, and the guy on the right is, well, God."

I found some other stuff, but that will do it for now. I want to get in this Rani site, probably spider-generated, unfortunately deleted before I got there.  It had the intriguing title "Rani ran deep."  Some highlights from Google's cached page are as follows:

Deep demersal fish assemblage structure in the Porcupine seabight

Dress. by Maha Laxmi. (Part-I) "Mummy, I need a new uniform," said Rani, inspecting herself in the mirror. ... "Mummy!" Rani ran up to her mother on Saturday morning ... She closed her eyes and, taking a deep breath, mustered all the courage she could, hating each passing second ...

Outpost 10F - Writers Guild
Tore Leifson is coming to attack us" Rani, the trell said, taking deep breaths. "It is all right, send the messenger inside Rani" Tora said...

rani-, ran- (Latin: frog). ...

Del Merden / Carli Selevar
... 16-year-old Del Merden is Rani Fost’s best friend. Del has a bad ... and the Tengrem Del turned and ran, his soft-booted feet pounding ... The tengrem took several slow, deep breaths. It seemed to calm ...

and of course
Look for rani ran deep
Find rani ran deep at one of the best sites the Internet has to offer!

I gather that Rani is a fairly common female name in India, and more specificaly the name of a beloved Ballywood actrress.  I can't help that, any more than I can keep Disney from giving Tinker Bell a pixie friend named Rani.  My Rani is going to stay Rani regardless - well, unless an editor insists otherwise as a condition of publication.  Then I'll consider making a change.  Maybe.

Karen

First off, a quiz result:

You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes. Moya (Farscape) 100% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 94% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 81% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 69% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 69% SG-1 (Stargate) 63% Serenity (Firefly) 63% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 56% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 50% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 44% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 38% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 31% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

I'm satisfied with this result. The folks on Moya would be more fun and less antagonistic or dark then on B5 or Serenity, let alone Galactica. I snagged this from plittle, who thinks he got it from Shelly.

While we're on the subject of memes, here's a reminder:  please select words for my Johari window if you haven't already.   Thanks!

I finally got to Texas Roadhouse for lunch today, after the Red Cross rejected my blood again with a low iron level.  Figured I needed some red meat!  While there I did something I haven't done in a restaurant in a while.  I worked on a novel.  Which one?  Well, obviously not Heirs.  Mages, too, had no missing scenes I was prepared to write without rereading. 

Heh, heh, heh.  That's right.  I wrote the opening scene of Restoration of Mâvarin, possibly called The Mâvarin Revolutions. It's the third book.  Or fourth, if you count the prequel.

Oh, yeah.  I'm in trouble now!

Karen