My brain is full, in the best way.

This weekend I went to my first writer’s conference, SCWC LA17, up in Irvine. I was nervous going in: I went alone, not knowing anyone, and not really knowing what it would be like.

But from the moment I checked-in at the registration desk, everyone made me feel welcome. Both of the people running the sci-fi/fantasy read-and-critique group were working registration, and their excitement at hearing that was my genre made me change my mind both about attending the banquet and trying to make one of the late-night critique groups.

In fact, their excitement and happiness was, if you’ll forgive the cliché, infectious. For the rest of the weekend, my usual shy self was gone, and I felt perfectly comfortable introducing myself to anyone I happened to sit next to and ask: “So what are you working on?”

It was an incredible feeling. My imposter syndrome – always whispering in my ears at other conferences and events – was quiet the whole weekend. We were all working on different books, in different genres, at different points in our careers. But we were all writers, all facing the same struggle with the written word.

I’d found my people.

I took…too many notes. Each workshop was full of great information, from the panel on writing convincing courtroom scenes – that reminds me, I need to find a way to attend a trial or two – to the talk on writing a strong opening, which ended up giving me insight into what I needed to do to finish a short story I’d started writing.

Yes, I started a new short story while at the conference. And finished a new flash fiction piece. And I came away with ideas for four, no five, new novels.

It was that inspiring.

So thank you, more than I can say, to the organizers and presenters and guest speakers at SCWC. You’ve put new wind in my sails, and given me new ways to up my writing game.

Only 750 words written this week.

But they’re good words, because I got ‘em rewriting the scene from last week.

The first draft of that scene turned out to be closer to what I needed than I thought. I was worried I’d have to throw the whole thing away and start over, but just changing the timing of some of the events, and adding in a hazard here and there, was enough to up the tension.

Now instead of being a step-by-step account of someone looking around in the aftermath of a disaster, it’s a POV character dodging debris as they try to figure out just what kind of disaster they find themselves a part of.

Have you ever had an editing task turn out to be easier than you thought? Where a small change to a scene makes a huge difference in how it reads?

Have you ever written a scene, and almost as soon as it’s done, you realize you have to rewrite it?

That happened to me this week, while getting my 1,133 words in.

The scene I plotted out last week started well, but about a third of the way through I started hitting writer’s block. Like I was bored with the scene already, and wanted to move on.

I pushed myself to finish the draft out, just to have the scene done. So I could say I accomplished something that night.

But as soon as I woke up the next morning, I knew I needed to start over from scratch.

If writing the scene was boring for me, it’s going to be boring to read, too. And I could see exactly where I went wrong: I had the scene start after most of the danger was over, and the scene was the character piecing together what had happened after the fact.

Better to start with the character in danger, and worried for their safety. So they have to scramble to keep themselves alive, and figure out what’s going on.

It’ll have higher tension, be easier to write, and be a lot more fun to read.

I don’t want to rewrite the scene. But I’ll need to, if I’m going to keep some narrative momentum going.

What about you? Do problems with your scenes ever manifest as writer’s block?

Only 156 words written this week.

I skipped out on the weekly Write In, and it shows. While I did get a few extra scenes plotted out, and connected some dangling plot threads while I was at it, I only started one scene.

I’m trying not to be too hard on myself. The pups have been sick, the heat wave means that even with the a/c going I still feel lethargic in the afternoon, and there’s been some ripples in our finances.

But I can’t help but think I should have gone to the Write In anyway, and that if I did, I’d have made more progress this week.

So I’m definitely going next week. And maybe I need to start writing more on a daily basis, even if it’s just a hundred words, rather than cramming everything into one night?

1,679 words written this week, all on the novel. That means two more scenes done – well, drafts of the new scenes done – and I’m two steps closer to being finished with this draft.

I missed last week’s entry, because I was at a work-related conference, but I did write that week, somewhere north of 1,400 words, again all in a single night at the Write In.

I’m tempted to add a second Write In night, just to see if I can do it. If I can write as much the second night as the first, I’ll basically double my output in a few hours. I’d get through this draft a lot faster.

And since just yesterday I noticed I had a reminder to send out this draft to beta readers by October 31, I’m thinking I can use the extra speed.

What do you do, when you need to write a little faster? Do you add extra writing sessions, or lengthen the ones you have? Or maybe you drop everything else for a while, and sprint towards the finish?

Only 450 words this week.

Instead of working on the novel, I’ve spent my time revising a flash fiction story, the one I wrote at WonderCon back in March.

The first two markets I submitted it to rejected it. I was about to submit it to a third, when I re-read it and saw some things that just…weren’t right.

So I printed it out and took it with me to this week’s Write In. I thought I’d be done with it in the first sprint, but I ended up working on it all night, trimming words here and there, rephrasing dialog, and dropping entire paragraphs.

I think the resulting story is shorter and stronger. The one thing I’m unsure of is it introduces a bit of jargon, a word that the two main characters (who are non-human) use to refer to humanity. I think it fits the world they’re in perfectly, and ties into the story’s ending, but then again, maybe it’s too subtle? Or jarring?

It’s hard to judge. I’ll probably send it out for one more read-through by some friends before submitting it again.

What do you do, when writing other worlds that might have different vocabulary from our own? Do you explain them bit by bit? Minimize it as much as possible? Or embrace the jargon, and count on the story to carry the reader along?

Only wrote 1,263 words this week (so far). But I feel like I accomplished a lot.

I went back to the write-in event this week, and again, having two hours of unbroken writing time is simply fantastic. I finished an editing pass on a short story, helped one of the other writers brainstorm ideas for her story, and wrote two pages on a new scene in the novel I’ve been revising.

I’ve also noticed printing out the text I’m editing seems to help. There’s something about being able to cross things out and scribble notes in the margins that lets me treat what I’ve written as more of a work-in-progress, instead of a delicate glass bird I might shatter if I alter it too much. It’s liberating, and I think I’m going to do that with all my work from now on.

Who knew that buying a home printer (for a totally different purpose) would have such an impact on my writing process?

What about you? What helps you get into editing mode? Is it just time away from the work, or do you do something to force you to see it differently?

News

And to a professional, SFWA-qualifying market, no less!

More details as they shake out, but I’m over-the-moon pumped. The story’s one I’ve been working on for three years (!), revising, polishing, and submitting.

Many thanks to my friends that suffered through reading all those drafts, and offered me the feedback I needed to make the story shine!

Reviews

Persian Fire, by Tom Holland

And it illuminated aspects of ancient Persia and Greece that I didn’t appreciate before. Like how Sparta trumpeted equality for everyone except for those living in the cities they conquered (who were turned into slaves, one and all). Or how democratic Athens regularly held an ostracism, so they could kick out a citizen who was getting too powerful (or causing too much resentment among other citizens). Or that the King of Persia considered all his subjects his slaves, and yet left them to worship their own gods, and mostly govern themselves, so long as they paid tribute.

I wish it’d gone more into a subject it teases in the Preface: How would Greece have fared if Xerxes had conquered it? Given that the Persian Kings were considering letting the Ionians (subjects of the empire) govern themselves democratically, how much of Western history would have been different?

Holland does go into detail about the Persian empire (origins, revolutions, etc), which is a great corrective to the usual Greek-sided way of telling this story. But he leaves one of his most tantalizing questions unexplored, which is a tragedy.

Paper Girls, Vol 1, by Brian K Vaughn, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, and Jared K Fletcher

And now I have yet another Image Comic (like Monstress, and Saga, and Wicked + Divine, and…) that I’ll pick up every chance I get.

Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that it’s set in 1988, it follows four pre-teens on their paper route one early morning, and that things rapidly get…weird. Like, time-travel and possible aliens and dinosaurs weird.

It’s fantastically well-done. Its creative team is firing on all cylinders: the story is strong, the drawing clear and easy-to-follow, the colors manage to invoke both the 80s (to me, anyway) and the various locations (early morning outside, dark basement, etc) and the lettering conveys everything from a radio’s static to a drunken warble.

Which reminds me, I need to go pick up Vol 2 :)

(aka Getting Back in the Saddle)

So it turns out what I thought would just be a small writing break while we were on vacation in early July turned into me taking the whole of July off. I wrote a few hundred words here and there, but didn’t make any real progress on the novel.

Which felt great, on the one hand. I got back into learning French, I had a lot more time to read, and my mornings had less time pressure (because I wasn’t trying to squeeze in my writing time on top of everything else). Very relaxing.

But as two weeks became three, then four, I started to worry. Was I ever going to go back to the book? Was I really going to leave it unfinished?

Or worse: was I done writing prose at all? Was four weeks going to become four months, or four years?

I’ve taken a years-long break from writing before. I worried it was happening again.

Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case: I wrote 1,833 words this week. All in one night.

I went to a Write In event for the first time this week, joining a group that meets at a coffee shop nearby every Tuesday and Thursday. Over two hours, they use the Pomodoro method: write sprint for 25 minutes, then break for 5, then write for 25, rinse, repeat.

I was skeptical going in, but it really worked for me. Being there with other writers, knowing the clock was ticking, forced me to push through the resistance I always feel when starting to write. And even though by the fourth sprint I was tired, and wanted to quit, I didn’t. I pushed through, and as a result I finished two scenes and added 1,800+ words to the book.

I’ve also started working on a comic book pitch, using an online class to get some guidance on what a comic pitch needs to include. I’m using the idea I had for my next novel; I think it’ll make a better comic than a book, since it’s set in the ancient Mediterranean. Showing the world via comic will be a lot more powerful than just me describing it, I think.

Working on both at once makes me feel like I’m making progress again. Like I’m not going to be stuck editing the novel forever. It’s allowed me to relax a bit, and that coupled with the (good) pressure of the Write In makes me feel like I can still do this, even after a break.

Have any of you ever tried a Write In? Did it work for you?

785 words written this week (so far). I’ve got some catch-up work to do over the weekend.

I’m still bouncing around between scenes. If my word count’s lighter than last week, it’s because I’ve been writing more new scenes, and doing less editing of existing ones.

I still feel non-linear is working for me, though. I finally broke through the blockage on the original scene that made me go non-linear, this week, and knocked out a basic version of it. I’m going back now and adding texture, additional insights into the character’s thoughts and motivations.

I had a slight mini-blockage toward the end of the scene when I couldn’t decide how to properly weave in a bunch of backstory and explanation, so the character’s actions would make sense. In re-reading the scene, to get my bearings, I realized a good chunk of that explanation actually belonged earlier in the scene. And in moving it up there, I freed up the narrative load of the scene’s end, so I can say what I need to say without bringing things to a screeching halt.

I also started thinking about changing the gender of one of the antagonists…But I’m holding off an acting on that, just yet. One set of edits at a time.

How are your projects going? Steady progress, or stuck in a plot swamp?

1,285 words written this week.

The new “just get something done every day” rules are really helping me. I’ve actually spent more time outlining and plotting this week than anything else. That’s allowed me to see the shape of the remaining story better, and that has let me take pieces of my previous draft and slot them in, then edit them into shape, letting me make good progress.

I’ve also been able to see which scenes were missing from my previous outline, and start keeping notes on those.

Which means I’ve also abandoned linearity this week. Instead of working through each scene in order, I’m jumping around, adding a few words here, then editing a chapter from a previous draft to fit the new storyline, then jotting down some notes on a post-climax scene.

I didn’t think I could work this way, but the proof is in the word count: I can. It’s gotten me out of the slump I felt I was falling into, staring at the same scene every day, unable to make progress.

There’s a part of me that’s starting to whisper “you could finish by the end of June after all,” but I’m shushing that part as much as possible. I need to make progress, and I’ll not go pell-mell just to hit a self-imposed deadline (and likely make myself sick again in the process).

What about you? When editing, do you find it easier to go scene-by-scene through the book, or do you hop around?

980 words written so far this week. If I can steal an extra hour or so for writing this weekend, I’m on track to hit 1,500 words, which I’ve decided to keep as my weekly goal, for the novel at least.

Why? Two things: First, I’ve been sick for…it feels like a month now. And I’m still not well. Without going into details, I’ve developed this wonderful case of burning, stinging pain everytime I move my head. But I’ve got to keep making progress on this book, or I’ll never finish it. Sick or not.

Second, this piece by Chuck Wendig made me re-think my approach to my writing goal. I recommend reading the whole thing, but for me it boiled down to this passage:

It is a kindness to yourself. Don’t expect to run a mile out of the gate. Don’t demand you write the next bestseller. See the increments. Break it up. Find safe, sane, kind limits for yourself — and then you will find it increasingly easy to exceed them. To embrace a little and relish the success instead of always trying to conquer the whole damn lot — and falling short every damn time.

Given everything else that’s going on, I definitely don’t want to make my writing into a chore. I don’t want to set my word count goal so high that I’m going to feel like a failure every day.

But I do want to make progress. So here’s the deal I’m making with myself: 300 words of progress on the novel, every week-day, adding up to 1,500 words a week total. If I go past that, great! But if I just hit it, that’s ok too.

And once I’ve hit my goal for the day, or the week, I’m free to work on other things: outline a new novel, edit a short story, etc. My thinking is this will make me feel less trapped in the current book, like I can’t work on anything else until it’s done.

We’ll see if that turns out to be the case. Wish me luck.

Peter Clines ran the Coffeehouse this month (on his birthday weekend no less!). We had a free-form discussion this time, covering everything from good twists in fiction to outlining techniques.

I had to leave early because I wasn’t feeling well, but I’ve captured my notes below.

Thanks again to Peter for running the show, and to Mysterious Galaxy for hosting!

• at different points in your career, different writing techniques will work for you; that's ok, it's normal for your process to change over time
• second sunday of each month: LA writers coffeehouse in burbank at dark delicacies at noon, then dystopian bookclub that night at last bookstore downtown
• good twist: needs to make logical sense, should change your perceptions of everything that came before
• empathy critical to being a writer; that's why it's important to go out to talk to people, experience things, to maintain that empathy
• remember that people (and thus your characters) are different around different groups and in different situations; give your characters a chance to show different sides of their lives (think killer on phone with family while finishing off a hit)
• expectations are a real constraint; we will let a comedy get away with different things than a drama; and genre (horror, scifi, etc) always comes with expectations
• one way to get away with blending genres: hang a lantern on it from the get-go; ex: i am not a serial killer, predator, where they broach the topic of monsters early on, and then go into the other genre for a while before coming back to the monsters
• clive custler's rule: no chapters longer than 5 pages (potato-chip chapters)
• stephen king: any word you need to go to a thesaurus for is the wrong word; meaning *not* that only blue collar words are worth using, but that reaching for a word you're not familiar with is wrong, write in your own vocabulary and it'll sound more natural
• transitions: in written fiction, we can't be as choppy as in tv or movies, where they jump from place to place instantaneously; we need more connective tissue, or it starts to feel episodic

Spoiler's ahead. If you haven't seen Season 8 yet, and plan to, you probably want to stop reading now.

Just to give us a little buffer between this and the spoiler's below, I'm posting a completely non-spoilery GoT picture below. Everything beneath that picture will contain spoilers.

What Went Wrong

Season 8 felt rushed, to me. Not in terms of pacing; they cranked the slow-motion all the way up to 11 for this last season. Rushed in terms of execution.

Jon's first dragon ride was the first time the dragons looked fake to me. I mean, I know they've always been CGI creations, but they looked good up till that point. It's like they got so far, and then quit.

And so many storylines get short shrift. Dany's slide from liberator to slaughterer is too abrupt, too forced. Ditto Jaime's about-face from noble knight to love-struck pawn. Once the battle with the Night King is over, it seems they give up explaining character actions, and instead just move them about the board to where they're needed.

It's sloppy, and it didn't have to be this way.

How to Fix It

Let's start with the decision to only make 6 episodes. This was a mistake. It doesn't give us enough time for all our storylines to breathe. And we end up wasting a good portion of each episode with slow-motion filler, instead of pushing the story ahead.

So we go back to 10 full episodes. We cut any slow-motion that doesn't serve the story or the tension of the episode (which, let's face it, means all of it gets cut, save for the slow-down before Arya's awesome leap at the Night King).

Now we've got enough space to tell our story. But what story do we tell?

Dany's Not Mad, She's Just Drawn That Way

Despite all of Varys' hand-wringing and Tyrion's prison self-pity, I don't think Daenerys' actions in the latter part of the season mean she's gone insane. I think she's been driven to a dark place. I think she's angry, and seeks vengeance against her enemies, as she always has.

But crazy? No.

And with more time in the season, we can show it.

Start with the siege of King's Landing. Let's make it a proper siege!

We can still have the naval battle at the beginning, where she loses another dragon because the ship-mounted scorpions catch her by surprise. So she lands angry and hurt, already. One more death to lay at Cersei's feet.

Her troops dig in around the capital. She summons her war council, where the Westerosi try to tell her how to proceed. She dismisses their advice, telling them she's conquered several cities already, and knows how it's done. She puts the prep work in the hands of Grey Worm, who was at her side when she won those cities.

The next day, she goes to the wall, and does what she knows best: she talks directly to the people.

She doesn't appeal to Cersei. She doesn't care about her. She makes her pitch directly to the people of King's Landing, just as she made it to the people of Slaver's Bay: throw down your masters, open the gates, and the Breaker of Chains will give you freedom.

But unlike before, the gates don't open. No troops lay down their arms.

Instead, Cersei executes a prisoner. Right there, in front of everyone, where Dany can see.

Notice I said a prisoner. Not Missandei, not yet. Cersei captured several people after the battle, and over the next few weeks, as the siege drags on, she executes them all, one by one.

Each day, Daenerys goes out to make her plea. Each day, she sees another of her followers executed in response.

And loses a little more of her patience.

On the last day of the siege, Cersei executes Missandei.

By the time battle is finally joined, we've seen the build-up. We've seen Daenerys try to prevent bloodshed in the way she knows how. We've seen her try to connect to the people, and fail.

So when the Bells sound, and she decides to sack the city anyway, we may not agree with her choice, but we understand why she makes it: because it's too little, too late.

Jaime Isn't Love-Struck, He's Summoned by Duty

Jaime's about-face in the latter half of the season also doesn't make sense. It's a complete reversal of his entire character arc, where he's been building to a sense of himself as an honorable person, a flawed one, but one that has been trying to do the right thing.

Why would he run back to Cersei, after finally rejecting her and riding North?

Answer: he wouldn't.

Instead, while the seige is happening in King's Landing (over a couple of episodes), we sometimes shift over to Winterfell to show what's happening there.

For Jaime and Brienne, it's a long-sought time of peace. Winter has come, true, but the Night King's been vanquished, and the war at King's Landing will soon be over (they expect Cersei to surrender to Dany's dragons). They can lay down their arms, and simply enjoy being with each other. A reward for all that they've gone through, all they've lost.

That peace is shattered, though, when a raven arrives from Tyrion, summoning Jaime to King's Landing.

Tyrion's letter tells Jaime of the loss of a second dragon. Of Daenerys' rejected pleas to the city. Of Cersei's stubbornness in the face of certain defeat.

And he begs his brother to come help. To sneak through the siege lines, and convince Cersei to surrender the city. To save the lives of the people of King's Landing once again, as he did when he killed the Mad King.

We see Brienne and Jaime argue about what to do. Brienne begs him to stay, to let Cersei pay for her mistakes, finally. But Jaime feels honor-bound to go.

We still get the scene of Brienne crying, begging him not to leave. We still get Jaime, regretful, saying goodbye. But not because he's "hateful".

He leaves because he's honorable.

Jon Hides from the Truth Until It's Too Late

Meanwhile, Jon didn't tell Daenerys who he really is in that scene in the crypts (before the battle with the Night King). He told her Rhaegar loved Lyanna, sure, but he held back on the results of that love.

Why? Because he has doubts. He'd just been told something that contradicts everything he knows about himself. He heard it from Bran, true, but Bran claims not to be Bran anymore. And Sam confirmed it, which makes him take it seriously, but Sam could be wrong, couldn't he?

So he holds back.

After the battle, he does finally tell someone. His family.

In that scene in the Godswood, he opens up. Shares what he knows, and his doubts about it. Bran insists it's true, and gives some spooky quotes to back it up.

Jon says he'll have to tell Dany next. She's his queen, she deserves to know.

But Sansa convinces him not to. Sansa tells him -- rightly -- that she'll see him as a threat if he tells her. That she doesn't want to see him burned alive, like her grandfather and uncle were. And if he doesn't want the throne, he shouldn't tell anyone.

The last argument convinces him. He decides not to tell Dany, and swears the rest of them to secrecy.

Sansa, of course, immediately tells Tyrion, intending to drive a wedge between Dany and Jon, weakening the Dragon Queen. And setting in motion the chain of events that will end with Varys' betrayal.

Jon tries to go on with Daenerys as if nothing's changed, but it has. He starts to pull away from her touch, her caress, out of his concerns about their incest.

Dany doesn't understand why, at first, though she gives him some slack because of what they've gone through (and her focus on retaking the Iron Throne from Cersei). But it unsettles her, makes her feel rejected and alone, and contributes to her sense that Westeros doesn't like her, that its people will never love and accept her.

So she pulls another page from her Essos playbook: marriage to a local noble, to cement the people's loyalty.

And the noble she chooses is Jon. It'll seal her alliance with the North, and head off any rebellion Sansa might be planning.

Before they leave Winterfell (because they'll be separated: she's going by dragon/sea and he's going by land), she proposes marriage. Jon is flustered, taken aback. He wants to say no, because of who he is, but he can't. Not without telling her.

So he agrees. Dany is happy, says they'll wait till after they take King's Landing, of course, but that it'll be good to have something to celebrate after so much war. Jon is sober, quiet, but plays it off as his concerns with the coming siege, nothing else.

But then the siege starts, and Daenerys loses another dragon, and Varys betrays her.

It's Varys that tells her Jon's parentage, just before she burns him alive. And when she confronts Jon, expecting him to deny it, he instead confirms what Varys believed, revealing that he's been keeping secrets from her, too.

At this, Dany goes cold. She assumes he wants the throne, though he denies it. She wonders how she can believe him, when he's been holding so much from her. He says she is his Queen, and she has to trust him.

She decides to trust him, but on one condition: he has to renounce the Iron Throne. She insists their wedding still take place, and that his formal renouncing of the throne take place after the ceremony. Everyone will see him bend the knee, and hear his words of fealty, and understand who is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Jon's hurt that she doesn't trust him explicitly, and unsure of an incestuous wedding. But he agrees. "As my Queen commands."

The Sack

So as we move into the Sack of King's Landing, everyone's under tremendous pressure. Tyrion's trying to win King's Landing with a minimum of bloodshed. Jaime's trying to do the honorable thing, even if it means leaving behind a peaceful life with the woman he loves (Brienne). Jon's growing more and more uncertain of his position and his safety.

And Daenerys feels alone, vulnerable, and unloved. The people of King's Landing seem defiant and ungrateful to her. Didn't she mobilize the army that defeated the Night King? Didn't she offer them a peaceful way out?

If the people of King's Landing -- or the other kingdoms -- find out who Jon really is, won't they turn on her the first chance they get?

The battle happens much like it does in the released version. But this time, when the Bells sound and she starts destroying the city, we understand why. She's not gone crazy. She's punishing them for making the wrong choice. For rejecting her.

One more change: when the Unsullied start slaughtering prisoners, Jon orders his men out. He doesn't stand there like an actor without blocking directions, he actively tells his men to get out of the city. As a result, none of the Westerosi knights participate in the slaughter.

The Aftermath

Jaime and Cersei die in the catacombs under the keep. Arya almost dies trying to get out before Dany destroys the city.

Jon and his troops finally enter King's Landing, trying to restore some sort of order. Tyrion wanders among the dead, looking for his siblings.

Daenerys gives a speech to her troops. But not the "eternal war" one she gives in the released version. She does praise them for slaughtering her enemies, and showing them no mercy when they deserved none. She praises their loyalty, and promises a new time of peace, though she knows she can always call on them to defend the defenseless.

Hearing that speech, and having seen the devastation, Tyrion resigns as her Hand. He can't work for someone that's proud of what she's done. She has him imprisoned, not for resigning, but for his betrayals: once for releasing Jaime in an attempt to help Cersei, and twice for keeping Jon's parentage from her.

In the throne room, Jon confronts Dany about the sack. Instead of responding with some weird speech about conquering the world, she defends her choices. Did she not give the people a choice? After they made it, how could she not hold them to its consequences? She talks about how she needs to inspire fear in Westeros, since she cannot inspire love. How she'll rebuild something better from the ashes, just as she did in Slaver's Bay. And just as in Slaver's Bay, those who won't bend the knee will be dealt with harshly.

Jon pushes back, saying Westeros won't respond to the same methods she used in Essos. That its nobles are more stubborn, its people more loyal to their rulers. Will she burn them all, just to ensure that what's left is loyal?

Daenerys looks at him, eyes fierce. "If I have to."

Queenslayer

Jon goes to see Tyrion, more torn than ever. Tyrion doesn't give him the "we should have always seen her madness speech," which, again, isn't needed. It's enough for Tyrion to be down on himself, to have helped her kill his family, and so many women and children. He can remark how it's different seeing people you've known your entire life being burned alive.

And he has a warning for Jon: that if he doesn't act soon, Dany's going to turn him against his family, too.

Jon scoffs. Sansa's loyal. He's going to marry the Queen. It won't be a problem.

Tyrion chides him for being naive. Sansa's not going to bend the knee, he insists. And when she doesn't, Dany's going to take her dragon and burn down Jon's childhood home. His only way out is to kill Daenerys, and take the throne from her.

Jon leaves in a huff. He's no assassin. No Queenslayer, some second coming of Jaime Lannister. He's loyal to his Queen, and if his family rebels, then so be it.

His bluster doesn't fool Tyrion. And it doesn't really fool himself, either. He comes out of the visit, wondering if it's true, and what he'll do if it comes to it.

Daenerys settles into King's Landing, to rule. She sends ravens to all the nobles of Westeros, inviting them to her coronation, and to swear oaths of fealty.

Sansa's answer comes back: no.

Daenerys summons Jon. Tells him to order Sansa south, as King in the North. He insists she can stay there, he'll bend the knee for the North.

But Dany won't be placated. If Sansa won't come, then she'll take her army to Winterfell and force her.

That pushes Jon over the edge. Torn between family and honor, he chooses family. He embraces Dany, for the last time, and plunges his dagger into her heart.

No Kings

Drogon melts the Iron Throne and takes Dany's body away.

Grey Worm sees Drogon leave, finds Jon with blood on his hands. Immediately takes him into custody.

Ser Davos convinces Grey Worm to let him call a meeting of the high lords of Westeros, to decide what to do.

And so we see Tyrion brought out to the assembly, where they are to decide his fate, and that of the Queenslayer.

Talk turns to choosing a King. Edmure stands up, begins his little speech about being a "veteran" and knowing about "statecraft."

And Sansa tells him to sit down.

After he sits, Sansa keeps talking. Says the North will never kneel to a Southern king again. Not ever. The North is free.

The Dornish noble nods, and says his kingdom, too, has ever been unbowed and unbent. Though they lost the Sand Snakes, they are unbroken. They will not bend the knee, either.

Tyrion gets frustrated. Wonders if it'll be a return to war between the kingdoms, without a single King or Queen to hold them together.

Sam stands, says they don't need a King. What they need is a Hand.

Edmure scoffs. Can't have a Hand of the King without a King.

Sam shakes his head. Not a Hand of the King, he says. A Hand of the Realm. Someone chosen by them, the Lords of Westeros, to serve the Realm as a whole. To arbitrate disputes, organize the defense of the Kingdoms, and prevent war.

Sansa agrees, a Hand would be fine. But who?

Here, Bran speaks up, finally. Nominates Tyrion as the Hand of the Realm. Explains why: he's been making mistakes, and he can spend the rest of his life cleaning up his mess, with no title or lands of his own.

The other lords agree, one by one. Tyrion will be the first Hand of the Realm.

As his first act, he chooses Bran to be his Master of Whispers.

His second act is to negotiate a deal for Jon. It winds up much the same as in the released version: life at the Wall in exchange for renouncing titles, and he escapes punishment for killing their Queen.

Heartfelt goodbyes, the Unsullied sail for Naath, Tyrion hosts his first Small Council meeting. Jon reunites with Ghost and Tormund, rides into the sunset.

Roll credits.

This week has been a total bust, writing-wise.

I started getting sick Sunday evening. By Monday, I had a fever and chills, coupled with an incredible rate of snot generation. That’s morphed into a lovely cough with a bonus sinus headache.

So instead of using Memorial Day to sprint through my word count for the week, I spent it trying not to move from underneath the covers. And every day since, I’ve spent what little energy I have at the day job, leaving me nothing for the novel.

And I’m still not well. Dammit.

I’m angry and I’m frustrated. I feel like a week of work has been stolen from me.

But I’m trying not to be angry at myself. I tell myself that illness is going to happen. And I can either rail at myself for taking it easy, or accept that there are times when I’m not going to be able to do everything.

It feels like an excuse, to be honest. But I also know that after a day of coughing and sneezing and headaches and working to keep the roof over my head, my brain is mush.

So I have to give it time. For now.

So I messed up.

I’ve been hitting my 1,500 word goal each week, like clockwork. But it’s not enough.

Based on where I am now, I’d need to write (or edit) something like 8,000 words a week in order to hit my self-imposed deadline of the end of June.

That kind of pace is…unlikely, to say the least. Possible, sure, but unlikely, given my schedule.

Earlier this week, I thought about going for it. Staying up later, getting up earlier, pushing to finish on time.

But the more I thought about it, the more stressed I became. It was harder to get started writing in the morning, because I knew I’d need to write four times my usual word count just to keep up.

I actually thought about quitting the novel altogether. Just dropping it and going back to working on some short story ideas. I’ve got plenty of them; I could keep busy with shorter fiction for the rest of the year.

Instead, I’ve decided to get rid of the source of my stress and doubts: I’m scrapping the deadline.

I’m definitely going to up my weekly word count, though, starting next week. 1,500 words is just not cutting it, in terms of finishing in a timely fashion. I don’t want to be still working on this draft next year. And I do have short stories I want to work on, stories that will take time to get right. Time I’ll have to earn by finishing this novel draft.

Wish me luck.

After missing last month’s, I finally made it back to the Coffeehouse yesterday.

Peter Clines stepped in for Jonathan Maberry to run it this time, with Henry Herz providing some useful counterpoints throughout.

We had more of a free-form discussion than usual, which ranged from “What’s going on with the WGA and their agents?” to “How do I write characters of other backgrounds and ethnicities without stepping into cultural appropriation?”

Many thanks to Clines and Herz for sharing their wisdom while keeping the discussion flowing, and to Mysterious Galaxy for hosting!

My notes:

• henry: you can pants your story, but don't pants your career
• peter: know what you want to get out of it, be honest about what you want, and go for it
• in tv, producers have more power than directors; directors can change every week, but producers stay and control the story arcs
• upcoming events:
• • may 11th: san diego writers workshop
• • september: central coast writers conference
• • peter: phoenix comic fest has great writers track, con runs until midnight every night; it's next weekend, but something to think about for next year
• • early august: scbwi annual conference in LA
• • june 20-22, historical novel society, in maryland, good program

• • mythcon is in san diego this year; run by mythopoetic society
• • new york pitch fest: 4 days in june, pitching to agents and editors in manhattan

• black hare publishing: soliciting submissions for two anthologies; small press, but looks professional; drabble fiction (200 words)
• contract reviews? join the author's guild, they'll review contracts for members
• arbitration: wga takes all the people that did drafts of a movie or dialog polishes, etc and decides who gets credit for the movie
• pierce brown wrote screenplay for red rising specifically to get paid screenwriting credits via wga arbitration; more important to him than the control over the screenplay
• 95% of the time, when they option your book, they'll ask if you want to write the screenplay; they'll throw it in the trash, but they'll ask anyway, just to stave off any future tantrums
• watch the balance between plot and story; if the story finishes but the plot keeps going (moonlighting syndrome) it's going to feel flat and boring
• peter: when revising, will do a draft just for one character, following their thread all the way through; helps catch inconsistencies in appearance, name, and their story arc (did i do anything with this plot of her conflict with her boss?)
• k.m. weyland: creating character arcs
• aeon timeline: interacts with scrivener, can help visualize the timeline of your story
• henry's doing picture book writing pt 2 later this month; send first draft to him ahead of time, they'll critique it in the class; compliment to the first class, but not necessary to have taken it
• lookup robert smalls, escaped slave

Only 1,147 words so far this week.

I seem to be perpetually hovering around 1/3 of the final word count of the novel, between 15,000 and 18,000 words. My total word count will start to climb, as I add new scenes, but then plunge when I delete old ones that no longer fit.

And I’ve still got that deadline of the end of June to hit.

I shouldn’t be worried, I suppose. If I finish another third this month, and then the final third in June, I’ll hit my target.

But what if I’m only halfway through by the end of May? What am I going to give up in order to get back on track?

Because I need to hit my June deadline. I’m already looking at writing conferences in the fall, ones where you can get pitch sessions with agents and editors. Spending all that money to go will be a waste if I don’t have a finished book to pitch.

So I need to finish this editing pass by the end of June, so I can send it off to beta readers for feedback, and have time to do some polishing passes before October.

October. Damn, I don’t want to still be working on this book by then.

I’d better get back to writing.

1,594 words written this week.

Those words have been pulled out of me, letter by letter. I have to open Scrivener and start reading the previous days' work as soon as I sit down to breakfast. If I wait till after I’ve finished, and let myself sink into Twitter or reading blog posts or magazines, I never get started.

Even once I’ve started, I keep checking my word count. “Am I done yet? No? How about now? Now? This time?”

I both can’t wait to be done with this rewrite, so I can move onto to the next project, and I don’t want to do the work necessary to finish it. It’s grinding, boring work, and – because I know even this draft is going to be imperfect – terrifying at the same time.

Why am I doing this, again?

Oh, yeah: because this story can’t be told without me. If I don’t write it, no one will know about Marcus, or Julia, or Franklin. No one will feel their pain, their fear, as I have. No one will rejoice at their triumphs.

I owe it to them to finish. So that’s what I’ll do.

1,086 words this week, all for the novel edit, this time.

Though I suppose calling what I’m doing a second draft would be more accurate. I’m not just reading through chapters, tweaking phrases and dialog. I’m rewriting some chapters wholesale, others I’m stitching together from bits and pieces of the previous draft like a linguistic version of Frankenstein’s monster.

It’s hard to ignore that previous draft, sometimes, even when I know it’s wrong. Not just bad – though the writing certainly deserves the name vomit draft – but wrong. Wrong for the story, wrong for the characters, wrong for the book. And yet, the fact that its words are done, written there on the page, makes it tempting to use them. Even when I know I shouldn’t.

So it’s easier to delete them, get them out of the way. Of course, then I’m staring at a blank page, that intimidating spotless thing. Who am I to rubbish it up, especially when I know this won’t be the last draft? These revisions will need revisions, and those will need tweaks, and those will need a polish.

I resort to tricks, at that point. Lie to myself. “Just 50 words,” I’ll say, “and then you can go back to Twitter.” Or: “Just describe what this character feels right now. You’ll cut it later, but get it done now, just in case some of it’s good.”

And once I’m going, it’s hard to stop. Even when the clock reminds me that it’s time to close up shop and head to the day job, to earn the money I use to keep my hobby – my art – going.

Every day a new trick. A new lie. But every day the word count grows. The work takes shape. The story comes alive.

1,134 words written so far this week. So I’ve got some catchup work to do this weekend.

About half of those words are from revising the flash fiction story I wrote at WonderCon. I tried to do it right this time: I put it aside for a week, sent it out to some very kind friends who were willing to read it, and then started working on it after I’d had a few days to digest their feedback.

I feel like this second draft is orders of magnitude better than the first. Though even calling it a second draft is somewhat disingenuous; I’ve written three other drafts of the same idea (different characters) before, neither of which really worked. So in some ways I’ve been working on this story for just two weeks. In other ways, I’ve been working on it for (checks date on Scrivener) almost a year.

Ye gods.

Found another gem on Twitter this week, from writer A Lee Martinez, that I’d like to share. It pushed me to re-examine my own dialog tags, and tighten things up a bit in that short story I’m working on.

The whole thread is good, but this is the bit that resonated with me:

It's like this:

"I don't know." He turned to her. "I don't."

VS.

He turned to her. "I don't know."

Even something as minor as that can turn a sentence, turning a scene, turning a chapter, turning a whole book. It's not that every word matters, but the ones that do, really do

What about you? What piece of writing advice has made you change something, however minor, in your own writing?

Written 1,014 words so far this week. That’s a little short of my 1,500-word goal, but given I ended up with 3,805 words for last week, I’m going to give myself a bit of a break.

I hit that awesome word count last week because of WorldCon. Partly because it was so inspiring. Partly because I had more time alone in which to write.

But it was more than that. WonderCon made me feel like a writer.

For maybe the first time, my imposter syndrome was flipped. I started seeing myself the way one of the panelists said we should see ourselves: that like superheroes, the day job is our secret identity, but in truth we’re writers.

And I finally felt that way. Not only did I feel like a writer, I felt like myself. That it isn’t shameful to not be published yet, because everyone starts out unpublished. That it isn’t bad or a barrier to have a day job, because everyone needs a way to pay the bills.

I even got to share this feeling. In the last panel, on “Writing the First Draft,” Jonathan Butler gave us all homework: to turn to the person sitting next to us, introduce ourselves, and build our support network of fellow writers.

But when I turned to the woman sitting next to me and said “So, you’re a writer?”, she looked down and said, “What makes someone a writer?”

I told her what Jonathan Maberry has told us at every Writers Coffeehouse, something I’m not sure I really believed until that moment: “Writers write. If you write, you’re a writer.”

She smiled, and started telling me about the screenplay she’s working on.

I might never see her again, but for that moment, I felt like we were friends, peers, fellow writers making our way along the path.

It was an incredible moment, and for that feeling alone, that feeling of being at the same time an authentic writer and my real self, it was worth it to go to WonderCon.

What about you? What moments have inspired you as a writer, or made you feel comfortable calling yourself a writer?

Last day of WonderCon arrived too quickly :(

There were still plenty of good panels, though, with a great interview with Tom King in-between. And it was absolutely thrilling to see a friend of mine, local indie author J Dianne Dotson, share a panel with Cory Doctorow!

All my notes are below. Looking forward to next year!

Technology is Cold, People are Warm

cory doctorow, j dianne dotson, michael grumley, s.b. divya, maura milan, maryelizabeth yturralde

let's talk about making space for everyone by, maybe, making space-suits for everyone?

• maura: there's a whole bunch of tech that people can modify into the suit, to accommodate themselves; for fashion, she tends to make everything black; it's kind of camouflage in a way
• dianne: how fabulous can you make it and it's still fashionable? always wants style and function; wants to think space should be for denizens, not dilettantes; everyone should be able to go, in 2019, we should have suits that fit everyone on the international space station
• s.b.: comes at it in an economic angle; money talks, it's often used as an excuse for not accommodating everyone; the way she approaches it in her fiction is protagonists from economically disadvantaged backgrounds having to use the tech designed for the advantaged
• cory: works on a non-profit who wants to abolish the phrase "so easy your mom could use it", because it takes more ingenuity to use something when it wasn't designed with you in the room; "so easy your boss could use it" is a better phrase, since they're the ones bullying employees to bypass firewalls

let's talk about some of the emotional aspects of interacting with tech (for example, apologizing to siri when asking q's)

• maura: has book where "monitors" control the room, interact via holographic projection; you can't just order them around, though, you have to negotiate with them, or trick them
• dianne: on the space station in her book, there's a variety of bots and drones to interact with; there's a character that has a problematic relationship with an AI that he's altered to resemble someone he used to be involved with
• s.b.: fascinated by how tech impacts lives and relationships of people; any tech derived from our needs as human beings: to remember appointments or navigate a room or communicate with our family a long way away; teleporter's are cool, but become more impactful when think of what it can do for your life
• cory: thinks most salient thing is not what it does but who it does it for and who it's designed for; likes exploring those power dynamics; in his book walkaway, explores the "how did that get there?" effect with the interaction of human beings and drones helping them build homes out of garbage

another emotion we like to experience is security; problem with consuming or creating science fiction is the burden of knowledge; we have cool medical apps now, but also hackers that can go in and change medical records; how does that knowledge impact you personally?

• s.b.: in her fiction, she turns it around; enjoys thinking about what we gain as we give up privacy; we expose ourselves to risk, but we gain so much: connections with family and friends, etc; likes the pendulum to swing both ways, showing the dark side of our tech and the bright mirror of what good things we could achieve if we wield these technologies appropriately?
• dianne: comes from a place of wanting patient data being secure; informs how people in her books come into a medical situation, and the ethics of their privacy and possible manipulation
• maura: something she worries about; with all the data she has to give to a company everytime she downloads an app; but there's always something about yourself that they can't get to; in her book, everyone knows a character's crimes, but no one knows what makes her tick, you have to make a personal connection in order to figure that out
• cory: his motto: "this will all be so great if we don't screw it up"; skeptical of accounts that say we're indifferent to losing our privacy, just because we give our info to facebook; being with your friends is an unalloyed good, and we hope that we can control these companies with democratic solutions; best we can hope for is to use cryptographic tools and networks as tools to help us advocate for building a better state; there's no parallel world, no getting away from a state that is often captured by the powerful

Spotlight on Tom King

nothing but audience q&a :)

recommends word balloon podcast, interviews with comics creators, awesome for people that want to break in, he listened and picked an origin story he wanted to follow -- brad meltzer's -- who wrote a novel, sent it to comics publishers, and got in

The Art of Garbage: Writing the First Draft

dr billy san juan, jonathan maberry, christine boylan, dr travis langley, dr janina scarlet, jonathan butler, danielle jaheaku

how do you take that first seed and turn it into a first draft?

• janina: lots of panic attacks and coffee; lots of late-night writing, lots of "this is the worst piece of garbage i've ever written"
• maberry: process changes a lot; first novel, had no expectation of selling it, just wanted to see if he liked doing it and wrote something he'd like to read; hated it at various times, but wrote an outline and basically wrote to the outline; now writes the ending first, and aims for the ending; writes an outline but doesn't stick to it; "first draft is you telling the story to you, cut yourself a break" (ray bradbury)
• christine: there's a huge different between an assignment and something you're writing on your own; some plays have taken her 10 years, and some episodes of tv she wrote in a weekend; sometime you're first draft is what's on the board in the writer's room, second draft is the outline, third draft is the first full crack at it (and might be the last)
• travis: for him, writing nonfiction, the first draft is the book proposal

how do you overcome the "this is terrible" voice?

• butler: it needs to be really rough and ugly, the first draft, so those feelings of "it's terrible" come with the territory; you should feel that it needs work early on, those are good instincts, but you've got to ignore them to get the draft done
• danielle: for her students, the hardest part is often getting started; she tells them to just write it down; don't worry about what it looks like, if you get wrapped up in self-doubt, you'll never get it down
• maberry: a lot of us get hit with imposter syndrome; each freaking books, even the pros reach a point about 2/3 through where they email their friends saying "this is going to be the book that sinks me"; we never lose our insecurity
• christine: yes, that text or that email that says "i'm done, i'm going to walk into the sea"; get a group of people you can send those texts to, so they can give you a reality check (and you can do the same for them)
• butler: don't leave this room without those people; we're all here to do the same thing
• christine: definitely work on yourself; do self-care; do not try to get rid of that voice; but pushing against it will give you the energy to do your work
• travis: writer's group is so important, yes, even if they're outside of your genre or your area of writing; also having deadlines with that group can give you motivation to finish things
• maberry: started the writers' coffeehouses because when he was writing his first novel he thought all the problems he was having were things that were unique to him; the coffeehouses give you a chance to see other writers going through the same problems and trade solutions
• janina: likes the writing groups because she noticed we tend to be more compassionate to others' writing than we are to our own; these anxieties show up because we care, because we love this product so much, and we want to put it out there and see other people enjoy it; for her, keeping that person who's going to read it in mind has helped her through the dips in the process

Day Two of WonderCon was packed with panels and interviews. I admit it was almost too much; towards the end of the day I stopped taking notes, and just sat back and listened.

But I still took down lots of good advice, from building a career in comics to getting hired on staff for a TV show.

Many thanks to the creators who took time away from their work and their families to share their insights and advice with us!

Breaking in and Staying in Comics

jim zub, max dunbar, chip mosher, ivan salazar, kiersten wing

jim zub: currently writing the avengers and iron man; did the rick & morty vs dungeons & dragons comic

max dunbar: artist, worked on dungeons & dragons, various comics at dc and marvel

jim zub: unlike a lot of other industries, you can go to conventions and show off your stuff, meet people; easiest way to get started in comics is to start making comics; got his own start in animation, because it seemed easier (to him) to break into (so many people needed for every project); started doing his own comic in the evenings after work (c. 2001); what's amazing about the internet is a lot of the barriers to getting your work out there are gone

max dunbar: x-men cartoon blew his mind when he was young; drew all the time, thought "there's a job where you get to draw non-stop"; much later, started taking his work to conventions; first breakthrough was convention in 2012, getting into a portfolio review, talking to editor directly, showing them his work

kiwi: there's a lot of different jobs in comics: marketing, editorial, etc. lots of other ways to get in

chip: got into comics in '82, parents let him have a subscription to rolling stone, which was a mistake, but it had an article about the dark knight, and he thought "this comic's going to be hot", so he went into the shop and bought two number 1s; soon followed with swamp thing, watchmen, etc; one his favorite comic companies at the time was kamiko: robotech, johnny quest, grendel, mage, etc; worked in a comic shop when he was a kid; somehow talked his parents into letting him take a bus from houston to san diego to let him go to comic-con when he was 16; he volunteered because he couldn't afford a badge; ended up meeting bob and diane with kamiko, who took them to a party where he got to hang out with mark hamill, ended up working for them, and then moving to boom studios and helping them staff up and become a major player, then to the movie side for oni press, then...

max dunbar: make as many contacts as you can early on, never know when those contacts are going to provide an in

jim zub: joined a creative community early on, they would go to the cons and then to dinner afterward, and all look out for each other as each of them got their foot in the door

kiwi: and not only those contacts help you get in the door, but they become your support system later on

jim zub: though if you take a hunt-and-kill approach to making contacts, just looking for the next person to help your career, people are going to notice and you won't be the kind of relationships you need to not only get in but become a better artist, a better collaborator; seek out the people on the sidelines, who aren't being mobbed, they're all important, and they can become part of your support system (and also: it's just good people to recognize the humanity in others)

ivan: got his job in marketing not on the basis of his professional stuff, but on the strength of his fan-mix covers; because (according to chip) they were more him

jim zub: agreed; so many people pitch stories that they don't really care about; but the biggest successes in indie comics over the last 25 years have been passion projects; nothing else is going to keep you going when you're juggling a day job and grinding this out on the side

audience questions:

• for jim: how do you get in the mindset for villains? jim -> when writing, he's done so much d&d, he's literally roleplaying all of it; villains are people that think they're good and can always justify how they're working towards their goals; they're driven people; if you don't know who your characters are, if you're just putting them in there because "we need a bad guy" they're not going to feel real to the reader; finds villainy for villainy's sake to be boring, always wants to find their motivation
• if you come in later in life, with a day job, how do you balance that?
  
  • jim -> can be really difficult, he's still teaching, and writing at night, it's nuts and it's hard to get in the right amount of writing; like any hobby, like exercise or dieting or anything habit-forming, you need to be able to carve out that time; and hopefully the people in your life understand that and will give you your space; it's so important to stop pretending like "i'm going to take 6 months off and do my creative project", that's a lie; make incremental progress constantly, daily, and then you'll look in the rearview mirror one day and marvel at your progress
  • max -> start small, on anthologies, short comics; it's important to work on projects and finish them, put them in your portfolio; put in the daily effort you'll need to work on your craft
  • jim -> definitely don't do things like cashing out your retirement account early so you can take a year off work to produce a comic; the problem with getting advice from successful people is that none of the bodies strewn on the fields around them speak up and talk about how things didn't work out for them
  • max -> you can keep your job and work in comics, it'll just take more discipline to juggle the two
• american market is saturated with superheroes, can you talk about pitching stuff that isn't that?
  
  • jim -> would not recommend trying to break in with a superhero comic; better to do a different genre, and build your rep there
  • max -> plenty of other stuff out there; his first superhero book was just last year
  • ivan -> for pitching, look at editors, see what they're working on, look for similar stuff, and pitch your stories to those editors
  • jim -> check the names in the back, be targeted in your pitches, look for the people/names in common with the work you like; when you reach out to them, be genuine, don't blow smoke, make a real connection based on your research and your fandom
• jim: don't send generic emails out to companies; meet people, and send your stuff to them

Spotlight on Scott Snyder

with whitney moore, host of the DC Daily (podcast?)

"what does it mean to have 80 years of batman?"

• batman was one of his favorite comics when he was little; he's from New York, grew up when times square, etc wasn't considered safe; batman resonated with the problems he saw growing up, every day
• and you want him to win, because he's the most human of the heroes; no super speed or strength or anything else

didn't handle his first year of writing batman well; got the book when he was in a low place, was really unsure of himself; was writing short stories at the time, one of them caught the attention of editors at DC, was only supposed to do background for the book, and then suddenly got handed the whole book; thought he'd only have that one shot at batman; wasn't handling pressure well, was drinking too much at cons and parties, getting into fights with editors, etc; ran into grant morrison, who told him the only way he could deal is if made his character have a birth and death, and that's when he started working on zero year; wanted batman to deal with the problems his kids are dealing with (shooter drills, terrorism, things that scott didn't have to deal with when he was little)

batman laughs is his chance to vent, be crazy; write the anti-batman; let loose with all his little problems like "i got stuck in traffic today"

what is it about the horror genre that draws you?

• was a very weird, anxious kid; lots of worries and anxieties; horror helped him deal with them
• found a loophole in the video store: they wouldn't rent R-rated videos to kids, but they would deliver them to your home; remembers getting night of the living dead, made a huge impact on him, so bleak, so socially conscious, lived in his imagination for months
• horror is the perfect distillation of conflict; even if you're writing a drama, you're pitting the hero against their own worst fears; if you're writing horror, you can go at it directly
• takes your worst fear and makes you face it; takes the worst version of what you're afraid of, and makes you face it, and then you come back ok

but even your horror has levity, how do you approach that? is a formula of timing, or..?

• tries to throw in jokes because you need some release through the book

always puts himself in the work; it comes from what he's struggling with personally; if you're an aspiring writer, be prepared to be vulnerable, because the only way you'll make these characters original is to bring to them your fears and problems

advice for aspiring writers and artists?

• you gotta write your own favorite story that day; doesn't have to be the smartest or the funniest, but the story that would change you that day
• pragmatically; it's going to suck; there's going to be lots of years when everyone else has careers, and you're like "i'm a writer!" with no credits
• you can't wait for the muse, you have to think of it as your real job, your secret identity, and work it like a real job
• when he started out, he wasn't the brightest bulb in the class when it came to writing, but he wanted to do it, and so he kept at it

audience questions?

• writer's block is just the fear of writing something shitty; even on the days where you suck, you have to write anyway
• what if you don't want to confront yourself on the page?
  
  • there's no way to avoid it; whatever you write will be you; even if you don't want to face your fears, write what about something you love, and make the villain the thing you hate, and you'll still be confronting yourself on the page

Inside the Writer's Room

chris parnell, gabrielle stanton, ashley miller, steven melching, ryan condal, deric hughes, bo yeon kim, kay reindl, jesse alexander, sarah watson, brian ford sullivan, marc bernardin, mark a altman

haven't done a breaking in panel in a while, let's do that, shall we?

focus on the staff writer today; how do they fit into the room?

gabby: levels: staff writer -> story editor -> executive story editor -> co-producer -> producer -> supervising producer -> co-executive producer -> executive producer, and that's wobble for a while

who hires writers?

• mark: writers hire writers; he wrote comic books for a while, didn't work out, agent got ahold of one of his comics and said what do you want to do when you grow up; need to be able to write a pilot, need to come to LA for meetings, need to wow a show-runner, need to be able to plug holes as a staff writer; your job is to help the show-runner execute their vision
• ryan: even show-runner has to get approval up the chain

in order to get hired, have to get your name on a list. how do you get on a show-runners list?

• sarah: once you've written your one great script, write your second great script; you don't know what show-runners are gonna be looking for; having a breadth of material helps; write as much as you can, because you get better with every script

recording this for inside the writer's room podcast, which will launch later this year

jesse, how many scripts had you written when you got staffed?

• wrote mostly features first, got into tv because a friend did and said it was fun
• found his voice very early on, but now he's so old that he's lost his voice
• write what you love and what you want to see, just crank out tons of it
• wrote 40-some scripts just to learn how to do it

understand: the show-runner's been moving up the chain for years, and this is their one shot to get their vision out, so they want to build a room that can get their voice out there

as a show-runner, what are you looking for?

• jesse: had series with nbc, young writer submitted 2 spec scripts for other shows, and they were amazing and they were two very different shows, and so he hired her
• kaye: is always looking for the writing; tip: read lots of scripts, read good ones and bad ones; most scripts aren't bad, they're just average; when you read something with a craft to it and a point of view to it, it stands out; she's looking for someone that has their craft working for them
• mark: wrote an original pilot that got him on castle; but he'd written features for years

when trying to get in a room, should they focus on specs or original material?

• mark: recommend writing original material; really depends on the show runner; he prefers reading original
• gabby: have a spec in your back pocket, because a lot of the writing programs now are asking for a spec and an original
• sarah: have a spec because it teaches you how to write in someone else's voice
• kaye: also helpful to learn how to breakdown a show

when staffing colony, ryan only show sci-fi scripts, but he really wanted drama writers, because the show was meant to be character-driven in a sci-fi backdrop; also looking for diverse voices, even someone that doesn't like science fiction to find out what kind of show they would watch

gotta market yourself to get on staff, right?

• deric: yes, you want to pick a lane, get known for something to get on a list, and then once you're established, you can move out of the lane; writing a smallville episode got him representation, but writing a rescue me episode is what got him his first job; gotta prove that you can write, no matter your lane
• ashley: i'm supposed to have a lane, but i've been drinking, and so i don't know the lane until i get home; been doing a lot of sword&sorcery lately; finding a lane is good advice, because it's about knowing who you are as a writer; having a ground truth you can start from is very powerful; should constantly be creating material and developing skills

nelson, any different in animation?

• in the early days, in the 80s, was studio staff driven; building full of writers would be assigned to whatever shows they were doing
• then it became a freelance model, with single show-runner
• now it's more like tv model, with staffs of writers working on show
• want to emphasize that it's important to find your voice and where you fit, because it'll be soul-crushing to be stuck somewhere you're not happy working in (imagine being stuck in a show type you don't like for 4-5 years)

what sets a good script apart from a bad script?

• ryan: voice; it's the hardest thing to quantify, but when you read a cormac mccarthy novel, you know it: that's a voice; that's the thing that leaps off the page, especially for people reading tons of scripts every day
• jesse: looks for craft in the scene; needs someone who can tell a story and knows the format of tv; know how to tell a story in a scene
• kaye: no more excuses for not having the right format for your script; when reading for a competition, knew she had a good script just from the way the writer started off the episode (just five pages in)
• sarah: it's character; wants to feel like she knows those characters; nothing more boring than a cop show that's just about cop stuff; hook her with the characters, and then she'll be into everything else

what's a good pilot character?

• jesse: put specifics in it; don't say "i love a car" say exactly what car; this is nuts and bolts stuff that'll make your work stand out
• marc: it's a character that's never satisfied; the show is them trying to cross that gulf between where they are and what they want (ex: buffy and her need to be normal); mulder is much more interesting before he finds his sister

brian: got in through the warner-bros workshop; made it through a scene of house he wrote

what are options out there for getting in the room?

• warner brothers writers' workshop
• abc/disney
• writers on the verge (nbc)
• cbs writers' mentoring program
• writers' assistant is another way in; they're the keeper of the wikipedia of the show, they keep all the notes and all the discussion from the room; they have to take everything and collate it into coherent thought at the end of the day, and send it out to the writers
• marc: don't be a dick; conduct yourself with grace; a lot of this business is people you know, and if you're a dick, people will find out and they won't want to hire you
• also: don't go on twitter and tear other shows down, it's not a good way to get known; people look at your social media when considering whether to hire you
• sarah: twitter is an optional platform with real-life consequences

audience questions:

• can you be too old to break in?
  
  • marc: got first staff job at 43 years old
• what about show bibles?
  
  • deric: no do not write the show bible, the show runner has that and they don't want to read yours

kaye: don't save anything from the pilot, don't assume you'll get a second episode; just blow shit up in the first episode, and deal with it once it gets accepted

Writing Fear

nelson soler, lia martin, kristine huntley, kayreth williams, suzanne park, teresa huang, ken choy

feeling fear makes you a writer; wants to create a safe space; teach you how to utilize it

if you don't have a writing support system, get one, to help you through your periods of doubt

take those traumas you've been through and turn them into fodder for comedy; it can be very cathartic

one method to add the comedy: have a character that can do things they wouldn't normally be able to do (example: if they have cancer, there's a lot of taboos they can break)

the rules: be funny, be honest, and be ugly; if you're going to go (expose trauma) go all the way; dig deep, write all the ugly into the script

"all procrastination is fear"

epiphany: the fear never goes away; you have to learn how you're going to live with it; stop fighting it or feeling bad about having it

technique: use creative kindling; give yourself 5-15 min to write something else: from a writing prompt, or a diary complaining about how things are going; then set timer and write during the whole time

every story is about fear; fear gives you the stakes, and the tension

take your fears and build them into stories, that'll make them resonate with other people

for a tv show, need to take that fear and make it big enough to form an umbrella for 100 episodes of a show; example: fear of failure in college, make the college a super-prestigious place where failure means derailing your entire life (and maybe ruining your family): now all the normal events and stresses become much more dramatic

I feel like a real test of a good Con is one you can attend by yourself and still have a good time.

WonderCon passed that test this year, with flying colors!

My wife couldn’t make it this year, so I was on my own. But the panels were fantastic, the dealers in the exhibit hall were warm and friendly, and everyone in general seemed to be having a blast.

I also learned a lot about world-building, dealing with fear while writing, and what to expect when trying to break into comics or TV writing.

My notes from Day One are below. I’ll post Days 2 and 3 later this week!

Fantasy Set Decoration

sam sykes, mary e. pearson, tricia levenseller, kali wallace, livia blackburne, with nadine armstrong

kali wallace: has a PhD in geophysics

dr livia blackburne: wrote first novel while researching neuroscience of reading

to sam and livia: what was the first thing you did when creating new world to make it stand out and be different?

• sam: i don't know, i just started writing; details of a different world comes after; my worldbuilding technique is all about designing things that will inflict pain and suffering on the main character, and everyone's pain is unique; started with the protag with a cool gun, made the gun sentient, then it just spiraled out from there
• livia: akin to sam, starts with something really cool, had an image of snakes while hiking in san diego, thought about how people inject themselves with venom to get immunity, what about a rite of passage where you have to build up your immunity and then they inject you with three types of poisons and if you survive, congrats you're a healer; flowed from there to what kind of society would that be, etc

to mary: how do you keep a long-running world feeling fresh?

• map on the inside, 12 kingdoms, trilogy only explored three kingdoms, all kind of different, gives glimpse of how world works, built on ashes of bygone civilization, in the spin-off duology, set in a very different geography; geography informs a lot of how people live and how they dress, etc; every little culture on our planet builds their own mythology, and the point of her series is to explore different mythologies built by these different kingdoms

tricia: wrote two novels with lots of swordfights, didn't want to write more swordfights in her next book, but needed an action hook, so thought of gimli and his battle-axe, so decided it'd be cool to do battle-axe fights, so from there thought "why would you use a battle axe? it's not very practical...what if the monsters have tough exoskeletons and the only way to get through them is with a massive battle-axe?" and went from there

kali: changes her worldbuilding based on the perspective of the main character, thinks a kid would notice different things from the world than an old person would or a 12-yr-old, etc

sam: cool stuff alone is not enough to tell the story, it only matters as much as it impacts the character

livia: tends to not like reading journey novels, but then she wrote one, and needed to figure out how to deal with it; had things happening in two far apart locations across a big empire, had to figure out how they communicate, etc; in the end, pushing her characters out let her show off the empire, and created challenges for the characters that made things more interesting

tricia: had to give her character a reason to come back home, even when she didn't want to; likes tackling problems that are really hard; thought "i'll just have my characters kill a god," but didn't know how that would happen; important to keep in mind what a character's goals are, and what problems they have to deal with

sam: people will remember gimmicks, magic systems, all that cool stuff, but it's not what makes you go "oh!" and tell your friend about the story that hit you; it's all set decoration unless the plot and characters pull you through it; the world-building feels more thorough when we see the impact of things on a character (or characters) that we like

mary: the world has to help carve and mold the character; if we can plop them in another world and their problems are the same, then either the character's forgettable, or the world is

sam: magic system in most recent book has a price; it's a deal with an eldritch creature that takes part of what makes you, you; was him being lazy, instead of having to worry about the impact of magic and the price, just made it directly affect their personality

livia: went into a series of questions to look into how people tick; like what if you lose your memory? and while it's gone you fall in love with someone you despise? and then what if your memory comes back?

tricia: main character was betrayed by close ally; wanted to explore how do you work to get trust back once your trust has been broken?

mary: her character came to large fork in the road; even while writing it she was wondering what her character was going to do; part of the fun of writing is looking at choices and how we make them, and how we learn to forgive ourselves

tricia: had a lot of fun making monsters in her last book; took her fears and made monsters that encapsulate them

how to build a good magic system?

• start with what your character needs it to do, and then make it cause more problems than it solves
• pay attention to whether magic is innate or trained, because that'll affect how your character experiences it

how much worldbuilding changes over drafts?

• mary: has a lot of it in her head before she writes, it feels a little flat in her first draft, and gets richer from there, but nothing changes radically; most important thing is to go back and ensure it's all consistent from beginning to end
• sam: you can always flesh something out later, but if it doesn't impact the characters, the reader won't care

Pak Talk!

greg pak

grew up in dallas, tx

shows some of the earliest comics he made, from when he was a kid

went to film school, made a movie called "robot stories", then got a gig writing comics for marvel

best-known for planet hulk, also co-created amadeus cho, who even became the hulk for a while ("the totally awesome hulk"), got to put together a superhero group called the protectors (largest group of asian-american superheroes)

also wrote "the princess who saved herself" and "the princess who saved her friends" (went to college with joco, based these on his song)

with boom! studios, done "ronin island" and "mech cadet yu" (creator-owned comics)

what he does: combine genre hijinks with real emotional storytelling

things he thinks about while working on these stories:

• heroism: how does that work? heroes don't do the right thing all the time; characters are trying to do their best in a complicated world; he really enjoyed writing superman, there's something compelling about characters that are really concerned with other people
• written several sequences where monsters turn out to not be monsters, and it's the hero that recognizes their non-montrousness
• diversity: he's biracial, half-korean, half-white (his terms), very conscious of the need for justice in the world; "why isn't there an asian kid in peanuts?"; now that he create comics, he's consciously bringing in more representation; it's great to get one diverse character in there, but when you get a whole bunch of them together, you get to show the diversity within the diversity, and no one character has to stand in anymore for everyone in their group (immigrants vs second-generation vs third-generation, etc); and this isn't new, matt murdock is a great character because he's very specifically irish catholic
• he's also noticed in a lot of stories with biracial histories, they become tragic backstories for someone else, or they're always being torn by their two cultures, instead of the real experience of people that just live as 1/4 chinese, 1/4 white, 1/2 black, etc.
• kingsway west: chinese gunslinger searching for his wife in an old west with magic

Science of Game of Thrones

dr travis langley, tamara robertson, allen pan, steve huff, jenna busch, jonathan maberry

q about joffrey: he was poisoned, and that poison seems to be similar to some real ones?

• travis: there's so many ways to poison joffrey; he dies fairly quickly; he's checked with his chemist friends; can mix up different poisons with belladonna, and several others, but it seems to have been strychnine (rat poison)

let's jump to wildfire

• tamara: definitely similar to greek fire, but even more so like napalm, in the way it sticks to its victims and can be launched long distances; greek fire was famous for being able to float on sea water and explode on impact
• travis: napalm was actually around in world war ii
• jonathan: martin inspired by napalm, he thought it was one of the most horrific things ever invented
• allen: have to address the fact that wildfire burns a very bright green; boron, for example, will burn green (borax mixed with rubbing alcohol); copper also burns green; "don't do that, but that's how you would do that"

let's talk about the ice wall: could you build one? and if you did, how would it work, and could a dragon take it down?

• jonathan: no, you couldn't do it; it's too big, the temp's not cold enough for it; you'd have to sculpt a glacier
• allen: 700 ft tall, 300 miles long; 300 feet wide; 6 trillion gallons of water; the entire flow of the mississippi river for 15 days (!)
• tamara: u of alaska looked at this, for it to be 300 ft thick, would need to be 20 miles (?) thick at the base
• travis: what if it wasn't all ice? their great wall froze over
• allen: no way, we're still talking an order of magnitude bigger than the great wall of china
• jonathan: also, the whole idea of a dragon flame taking it down; i know it's dead but they had it breathe flame for 2 minutes, that's too long; also cruise missiles couldn't have taken that thing down, let alone a 2 min flame; but where does all that gas come from?
• allen: dragons, breathing fire, closest actual animal is a bombadier beetle; the beetle has two glands in its abdomen, has hydrogen peroxide and ??? mixes the two together so the two react and boil, expansion of steam is enough to shoot those chemicals out of its butt at those temps (to defend itself); is lethal to smaller predators (spiders, etc); hypergallic chemicals: rocket propellants that combust when mixed; his two candidates? hydrogen peroxide and kerosene; that would work, but doesn't cover the volume
• tamara: can look at cows if you want it to come out of the mouth; cow produces 66-132 gallons of methane in a day; just before the dragon died we see a huge sac under the throat burst, it could be holding the gas there
• travis: there's a discworld book where that is how it works for their dragons: they fart fire, and it's how they fly

dragon flight?

• travis: dragons have 2 legs, and then the wings! no four legged things with the wings
• allen: devil's advocate here: pegasi have six limbs, maybe dragons and pegasi have a common ancestor?
• jonathan: also the mass to weight ratios are completely wrong, there's no way it could fly because it's too heavy; for the show, they studied how birds and bats fly, so they do some cool stuff when they take off, but they get airborne way too fast
• tamara: but it could be thermal currents, giving them extra lift?

let's talk about valyrian steel and dragonglass steel

• steve: idea behind valyrian steel is that it's a sword of loss; similar to damascene steel in our world, because it was a lost art; both damascus and folded steel you're looking at layers; different from japanese swords, which tend to be harder, with a soft core, which makes the edge brittle (so they would never go edge-to-edge when fighting); so we have methods of forging steel that's similar to valyrian steel; and dragonglass is basically obsidian, which can be quite sharp and strong, but can snap
• travis: what about under high heat?
• steve: that's where you get into the fantasy bit; a real sword should have a bit of flex, you should be able to bend it and it come back to true; but under high heat, it'll damage the blade and it'll become brittle or start to warp
• allen: if valyrian steel is lost, wouldn't melting it down and then making two more a terrible way to make a sword?
• steve: yes; in the real world, if a sword breaks, they would just resharpen it an use it as a smaller weapon; also forged blades are stronger than anything that's cast
• jonathan: q about the obsidian: that's chipped, not forged; they're bringing in a swordsmith for those, wouldn't you rather get a sculptor?
• steve: definitely would want someone that has experience with knapping, not forging

what about jaime learning to use his other hand?

• steve: he and his students train with both hands; just because we never saw jaime train with his other hand, it doesn't mean he couldn't do it
• jonathan: surprised they didn't go into that; he trained with both hands as well, with jiu-jitsu; losing one hand might make him a lesser swordsman, but he'd still have a great deal of skill
• steve: most of combat is mastery of concepts; he's not going to suddenly lose those skills because he lost a hand

psychology question: let's talk about hodor; anything that would cause someone to continually repeat one word

• travis: yes! expressive aphasia: the person has trouble with communication that they previously didn't have, because of a brain injury; dr broca, the researcher that the language area of the brain is named for, had a patient that said "tan"; when travis was an intern, he had a patient who could only say two words: "party" and "shittin"

let's talk about white walkers: could they exist? wouldn't any liquid left in the body freeze?

• allen: ok, we're gonna talk weird animals again; like, how are the white walkers even moving around if they're some kind of frozen? there's a wood frog in NA, can be frozen solid for up to 7 months at a time, and when spring comes around, it's fine; creates glucose and urea in its cells, that act as cryoprotectants; lowers the glass transition temp of tissue; main issue with walking around, is that it should not be able to move; he proposes, as part of their conversion process, they develop these cryogens in their tissues
• jonathan: there's a couple other squirrels and creatures that freeze like that, but they don't move; each zombie book he writes, he has to mug a bunch of scientists to come up with different theories to make zombies make sense; closest he ever got were parasites that hijack the nervous system to operate it after the loss of intelligence; but the cold factor you can't get around, there's nothing that allows frozen tissue to be flexible enough to walk; they don't act according to any laws of physics in those fight scenes
• allen: i would like to counter, with the idea that, the temps around the wall can't be that cold because there's a forest there; there's a lower limit to the temps there
• jonathan: so as winter arrives, they should freeze?
• allen: not if they invade westeros! i think that if you took a dead body, and reanimated it, and injected it with glucose and urea, and put it in a tundran environment, where there are still dire wolves, i think that body is still mobile

what about the psychology of evil?

• travis: narcissism isn't enough; you need the dark triad: sadism, narcissism, and psychopathy; people with just one of the three can be high functioning and members of society; there's a measurable difference in brain activity with psychopaths, particularly in the p3 wave, so they think there's a biological component, but they don't know; current theory is that they might have some kind of very early brain injury; and the novels mention joffrey having had a brain injury early in life
• tamara: there's also the genetic anomaly of being born from twins; they see increased incidents of schizophrenia with incest

audience questions:

• is there some way for daenarys to have gone into a pyre and coming out ok?
• why the irregular seasons? tamara: a volcanic eruption, around valyria, would both explain the long winters and the sheer amount of dragonglass they have (as well as explaining what happened to valyria); reference: explosion of krakatoa in the 19th century, which erupted in southern pacific but affected winters as far away as europe