So faced with the fact that – right now, at least – writing blog posts is hard for me, I’ve decided to try just talking. I hesitate to call it a podcast. It’s podcast-esque.
Note: I mean that I’m in my third year of grad school. Not third semester. Blahblah.
You can read the excerpt I read aloud below. From untitled time-travel-war-thing.
I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/14157/uncensor
I’m █████ to ████ █████ the ████ █████ I’m ███████ on. I ████, it █████ █████-██████. We’ll see.
██████ I ████: I ████ it’s set in a █████████ ████████ ██████. I ████ ████ █████’s a █████ of █████ █████ ████████ ████████████. I ████ my ████ ██████████ are █████ █████–a man ████ a ███████ ██████████ who has ████ ████████ ████ a ██████████ and who has ███████ to ████ █████ the █████████–and ███████–a man ████ a ██████ ██████, a ██████████ ████, and ██████████ ██████, who █████ to ███████ ████ he is an ███████████ of St. ███████ █████████. I ████ ████ █████ and ███████ ████ ██████████ ████ a █████. I ████ ████ the ████ █████ not ████ ██████ █████ ███████ ████████████ but ██████ the ███████ of a ████████ █████████ █████ to ███████ a █████ to █████████ the ██████████.
██████ I don’t ████: ███████ or not ███████ ██████ is an █████. ███████ or not █████’s ██████ is one of the ████ ████. ███████ or not █████ ████ be a █████ ██████.
█████ I ████ all of ████ out, ████ a █████.
- – -
He ████ ███████ the ████, ███████ his █████ ███████ it, ██████ ████ ████ and ██████ ███████ ████ and █████████ on. He no ██████ ██████████ how ████ he had ████ ███████.
█████ he had ███████ ████ the dog-man, █████ had ████ a █████ ████ of ████████ and ███████████ █████. ████ had ████ the ████, and for a ██████ █████ he had ██████ ████ ████. █████ was █████████ █████ the █████ ██████, so █████████ ████ the ██████ and ██████████ █████ ████ he had ████ all ██████ him, the ████ ███████ in the █████ █████. The █████ had ████ a ██████ ████…
████.
And he had ██████ in it, ████████ █████ in the ██████ of an ████████ █████ ████ █████, ██████ █████ ███████ ████ his ████ ████, ████ ██████ up to the sky and his ████ ██████. █████. ████. █████ ████ ████ ██████. He ██████████ ████ ████.
████ a ██████ and the █████ of ███████ █████████ ██████ him, and the ███████ of ██████ had ████████. The █████ ██████ him ███████. He was ██████ █████.
████ or █████ he █████ a █████ ████ ██████ to him ████ the █████ did, and █████████ in him ████████ him ████ the █████ was █████ and the █████ was ███████, and he ███████ and ████ ███████ ████ █████ and ██████ his ████ ██████ ███████ as his ████ was ███████ ████ ███████. He was ███████████ █████, █████████ and █████████ ██████ ████ ███████ a ████. ████████ █████. ██████ ████ was so █████ to ██████, ████ ████ was so █████ to ████.
████ was not ████. ████ was a ████ ██████ of it. He ███████ ████ and ██████ on, ██████ ███████ ███████, ███████ ██████ ██████████.
Why was he ████? █████ had he ████ ████? It ████ a ████ for the █████████ to ████ to him—to ████ ████████ █████████ as █████ as the ████ of his █████████—but ████ ████ ████ ████ ████ █████████, ██████████ to ██████, and ██████ by a ████████ █████████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ ███████. ████ he █████ ████ ████ ████. By ████ the █████ was ████████ and far ████ ████████, no ██████ █████████ to ████ in. █████ was ███████ his ████. He ███████ in a ████ █████ of ██████ and ██████ his ███████ █████ ███████ the █████ of his ████ and █████████.
He ████’t ████ why, █████ all ██████, he ██████ be ███████ ███████████.
I’m foregoing the semi-usual Muse Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Whenever-The-Hell-I-Write-It post in favor of one in 
honor of a release I have today: Jane Litte’s (of Dear Author) BDSM-y anthology Agony/Ecstasy. You can pick up a copy here and I highly recommend it, because I’m in some extremely good company.
I’m also a bit of an oddball, though, and I’d like to mark the release by talking about why.
“Wetwire” started out just straight-up erotica, but part of the way through the inception process, something interesting happened: I started to think about Themes. Those themes eventually expanded to fill most of the mental space of the story, until I ended up feeling like the sex was mostly a way of talking about something else. Two primary something elses, actually. They are:
- William Gibson’s idea of how “the street finds its own uses for things”. “Burning Chrome” is one of my favorite short stories ever, and Gibson is one of my favorite authors ever, so of course, setting out to write cyberpunk porn, it makes sense that he would be lurking in the background (not like in a creepy way). But the idea is interesting to me beyond that. What I ended up writing about was that initial moment in the emergence of a new form of technology – or a new evolution of an existing one – when it’s not yet widespread or widely commercial, when the only people making much use of it are techies and hackers. At those moments, its actual use might be extremely up for grabs – people might use it for a whole set of things for which it was not originally designed, and for which it may not be used by the public in general once it goes mainstream.
How The Hell To Do This, Part The Sixth: Submit!
So this is neither a regular series anymore, nor is it happening on Mondays. I’m keeping the title around because I like alliteration, but if there’s one thing that’s made itself abundantly clear over the last semester, it’s that regular blogging is 
much harder for me than regular story-writing.
Nevertheless, here’s this installment: for when you’ve written and beta’d and edited and written and edited and written some more, and you have something that you’re really happy with.
So now you send it out.
And yet I get the sense that a lot of people struggle with this part. Which makes total sense – before, the people reading your stuff have probably just been you and some people you at least know sort of well. Now you’re sending your little story that you love and worked so hard on out to people who don’t know you at all. And they’ll look at it, and you know that it’s likely that they won’t want it. That they’ll reject it.
Buddy, that hurts.
How The Hell To Do This, Part The Fifth: Edit Like An Asshole.
A word about the title of these: I realize that it might read sort of obnoxious, like I think that this is the the definitive way to be a writer and to publish. Let me be clear about this: I don’t think that, nor am I claiming it. I think there are some broad conventions that are likely to work across different people and working styles, as well as techniques that might be more likely to yield good results than others. But this is only what’s worked for me, and what I’ve done. It might not work 
for you. It might be bad advice for you. So I make no claim to authority here outside my own experience. The wording of the title itself is meant to convey impatience and exasperation toward the craft/process itself, which is frankly how I feel about writing a lot of the time.
That clarified, this week: editing.
I’ve written a lot around and about the process of editing, but not much that deals directly with what the process looks like, for me. This is mostly because, for me, the process is still very much in the middle of being hammered out, and it changes all the time. Of all the elements of writing that I deal with, editing is probably the one on which I still need to do the most work – which sucks, because it’s sort of really really important.
Me, I’m impatient (see above). I’m also blessed with the ability to write first drafts that often don’t need drastic tweaking before they’re at least okay. But because I don’t usually see the need for massive tweaking, and because I’m impatient and I have an itchy submission finger (more about this next week), I tend to overlook the need for more subtle polishing, and I sometimes send things out before they’re really ready – before they really are about as good as they can be.
In that vein, some things I’ve learned, most of which I’m sure are familiar to you:
How The Hell To Do This, Part The Fourth: Let It Suck
This is something else I’ve written about before. It tends to be more of an issue with longer pieces for me, because those are the points at which stamina really comes into play (people who compare writing novels to running marathons are not kidding in the slightest, nor are they overstating the point, though again, everyone is different). But I think it’s the kind of thing that has the potential to be a problem for anyone, at any point.
Here’s what I’m talking about: there is going to come a time – and probably this time will come semi-frequently – where you’re not blocked, but nothing you write seems good and you’re sure that it all sucks. This is naturally going to make you want to stop writing, because writing sucktastic stuff is no fun, even if no one else ever sees it. It’s embarrassing and it feels like a slogging waste of time.
This is a trap. Don’t fall for it.
How The Hell To Do This, Part The Third: Do Your Research
No, I’m not talking about market research, at least not in the sense that the term is normally used; I’ll get to that later. And I’m not talking about research for your actual story; you should be doing that anyway, if you’re ever treading into an area 
where your knowledge base is less than expert-level. I’m talking about genre research–about acquainting yourself with the basics of what’s going on in whatever genre you happen to be working within, even if it’s very fuzzily defined.
For a lot of people, this isn’t an issue; they get into writing what they write in the first place because they’re voracious readers and they’re totally up on all the current big names and all the books getting a lot of critical and consumer attention. But I honestly was not one of those people. I love SF and always have, but when I started writing it for publication, I was woefully ill-informed regarding the state of the industry, in terms of who the people to watch were, and in terms of who was producing the work that was getting people excited. I had to give myself kind of a crash course, and keeping up with my reading is still something I try to work on. It’s reading for pleasure, but it’s also frankly part of the work.
How The Hell To Do This, Part The Second: Pay Attention
Learning to write regularly is one of the most important things when it comes to this business – maybe actually the most important, and if I can call myself prolific by any stretch it’s because I’ve managed to hammer my brain into that pattern. 
But it’s a little hard to ignore the fact that writing regularly doesn’t do you a tremendous amount of good unless (at some point) you write about something.
Getting ideas is sometimes tricky and sometimes not. I’ve written about it before, but I think it’s worth saying something about again here. In that last post, I said that I think it’s not that I have more ideas than I used to but that I’ve learned how to pay attention to them. I still think that’s true, at least to some degree, but that still doesn’t do much to address the question of where they come from, and how one might get an idea when one is having trouble doing so.
So I’m returning from completing my first draft of the Mars novel thing – now officially called Communion – and I want to 
get blogging regularly again. To that end, I thought I’d start kind of a blog series within a blog series: less musing on how the muse side of this works and more – sort of as a way to pump myself up, if nothing else – a collection of practical things I’ve learned, in about two and a half years, about the nuts and bolts of writing and being paid for it.
I’m still learning, so some of this is probably going to be wrong. I’m just me, so some of this will probably not apply outside that case. That said, as a social scientist I’m a great believer in taking what little we know and doing the best we reasonably can with it. So.
How The Hell To Do This, Part The First: Make It A Habit
Okay, so, a number of things have happened since I last posted. 
First: THE NOVEL IS DONE. Well, the first draft is. But I generally write relatively complete first drafts, so I don’t anticipate very much needing to be done to the structure of the thing in the editing stage–which I plan to start in a couple of weeks. I may have to vanish again right about then but for the present I plan to return to at least a semi-regular posting schedule.
Second, my numbers station-inspired story “The Cold Death of Papa November” is now up to read for free at Three-Lobed Burning Eye. You can also hear me reading it at that link (and you can download the mp3 for ipodery). I really do love that weird piece of… something. The story, I mean. I’m glad it’s been loosed on the world. And the rest of that issue of 3LBE is very worth your time.
And finally, another plug for Shadows & Tall Trees #2: Issue #1 sold out, and it’s very likely that this one will too, given the limited print run and the fact that people seem to like the magazine. So if you want it, I’d get it sooner rather than later. It is also very worth your time, and not just because of me (seriously, Steve Rasnic Tem’s piece in there is way unsettling).
And that’s it for me for now. But watch this space.
