Guest Post from Jamie Mason: ZOMBIEDÄMMERUNG - Twilight of the Walkers

When I first became aware of BIC-HOK a few years ago, it enthralled me. I love a good acronym, and doubly so one that promises to whisper the secret to being a writer right into my eager ear.

Butt in chair, hands on keyboard became more than an acronym for me. It became a mantra. Show up, and the rest will take care of itself. My butt was in the chair, and my hands were on the keyboard. And I was writing, cranking out crappy first drafts, and feeling less like a writer with every one.

Motivation, as it happens, is beautifully and frustratingly subjective. Some of us are motivated by the simplicity of showing up every day. Some of us need a little external nudge from time to time. If you are in the latter group, I have some secrets to whisper to you.

Although writing is generally a solo endeavour, the power of a good writing group is not to be underestimated. Like-minded, similarly-driven individuals can help you hold yourself accountable for all those stories you say you’re going to write someday. And once you’ve written the stories, a good writing group can provide you with the constructive criticism that you will need to improve them. Groups that meet regularly and stick to a specific critique format are particularly useful because they provide structure for those of us who need that sort of external impetus to produce workable drafts. I found my first writing group on Craigslist, but if your time is limited or your locale is remote, you might prefer to join a virtual group like critters.org instead.

If you are intrigued by the power of group accountability, I have a magic spreadsheet to show you. No, really! It’s called the Magic Spreadsheet and it is an ingenious invention. Log your daily word count in the spreadsheet and it automatically gives you points for making your quota, going over your quota, and maintaining a writing streak. When your points add up, your level increases and so does your word count quota, so it never gets too easy. And if you relish a bit of competition, you can check out the leaderboard sheet to see how your counts stack up with the other writers who are participating. If you think this tool might help to motivate you, you can find more information in the Google+ community or the Facebook group.

Wrangling spreadsheets, even magic ones, might not sound all that thrilling to you. If you’d rather picture yourself slaying the dragons of procrastination with a magical morning-star, I’d encourage you to check out HabitRPG. HabitRPG is an open-source habit-building app that is structured like a role-playing game. It enforces good habits by awarding you XP and gold, and can be used to manage your to-do list as well. There are many groups, or guilds, in HabitRPG that are devoted to writing communities. These guilds create challenges for their members (like meeting a daily word quota) and also provide space to chat in real time with other writers. If you prefer to quest solo, you can use HabitRPG as your own, lone fantasy metaphor for all those real-life bits and bobs you have been procrastinating, including but not limited to your writing.

Remember, tools to spark writerly motivation can be helpful, but anything that detracts from actual BIC-HOK should be considered cat hoovering: any excuse to avoid writing, even vacuuming the cat.

BIO: Halsted M. Bernard obsessively archives the present, but cannot stop thinking about the world after this one. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, two cats, a few gadgets, several fountain pens, and many books. Find her online at http://halstedmbernard.com.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines.

I cut my SFF teeth on Star Trek, and I credit The Next Generation as setting me on the path to becoming an SFF author. But I lament the monocultures encountered on those Starfleet missions as a missed opportunity. Monocultures may catch attention as a hook, but the believability crumbles when the reader has a lengthy stay and finds that they lack real depth.

My favorite part of writing SFF is inviting the reader to explore new worlds with unearthly mechanics, magic systems, or zoology that entrance the imagination. But what imprints a story on the reader’s soul is the ability to relate to the experience. The real world contains multitudinous experiences, cultures, and viewpoints. It’s important to reflect that in our stories, even if we are zooming in on a more intimate story.

Avoiding monoculture by creating characters who have different experiences makes a story feel vibrant, more faithful, and realistic. When those characters interact, it adds conflict, tension, and opportunities to create real magic.

Building this kind of depth is not hard! It just takes more of the thoughtful and intentional world-building the author is already engaged in. It doesn’t limit the author’s imagination, it gives it more opportunity.

The first book in my Peridot Shift series is told via my airship captain and ne’er-do-well, Talis. While choosing one POV tightened up the story considerably from earlier drafts where multiple characters took center stage, it was incredibly frustrating to describe the entirety of Peridot through the lens of Talis’s biases. Even as her worldview expands through the events of the story, there’s so much she still doesn’t know she doesn’t know. I was mindful of knocking her down a notch every so often, clearing the viewport of her fog so the reader could get a better view beyond it, but still, there was so much work to be done.

When it came time to write the sequel, SALVAGE’s editor, Ryan Kelley, immediately identified that there were other crucial stories here to tell. I approached a massive revision with giddy excitement. My editor had said those magic words every author dreams of hearing: More story. Here was the chance to expand the depth of my world by featuring the other denizens of Peridot!

Talis and her crew are still central to the story, but they begin in a subterranean Rakkar city where their plot to make a triumphant return to the life they knew leaves them far from bigger machinations that are turning. Machinations that threaten consequences for more than just a rag-tag crew of smugglers.

Additional POV characters let me open the map on the world I’d created. To show more cultures, and more viewpoints, including differing positions within a single culture.

Instead of waiting for book three to shatter the stereotype Talis presented of the Vein as a race of blind seers from book one, I got to give a person, Zeela, center stage moments in book two. She observes diabolical happenings and the path to become part of Talis’s crew is clarified, but Zeela also gets to smash the mystique of her people’s uncanny observations by revealing their use of secret, high-tech assistive devices. To normalize and personalize what seems strange and unnatural to someone who doesn’t share that viewpoint.

At the opposite end of the Cutter social spectrum, we follow the twisted thoughts of Hankirk, as well as the selfless aspirations of a young empress. Both people are the same race as Talis, but they live entirely different experiences and show us different ways of seeing the subtler moments of a grand story.

SALVAGE also puts the spotlight on High Priestess Illiya, a Bone priestess struggling to comfort and protect her congregation after their goddess is made mortal. In FLOTSAM, Talis introduces Illiya as more cutthroat and sinister than a pirate. Don’t get me wrong, she is! But in SALVAGE, we also get to learn of her pride, her empathy, and her anxiety.

Every character lives their own life, and each life builds more volume into what it means to be a part of Peridot.

Filling our secondary worlds with multiple cultures and viewpoints reminds us to look outside of our own experiences in the real world, to look past our first impressions so we can understand more about each other. Maybe as we go on a grand adventure to impossible realms, we also learn to see each other, here on Earth, as characters each in our own story whose viewpoints are as worthy as our own.

About the Author
R J THEODORE (website) is hellbent on keeping herself busy. No, really, if she has two minutes to rub together at the end of the day, she invents a new project with which to occupy them.

She enjoys reading, design, illustration, video games (she will take you down in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo), binging on movies and streaming series, napping with her cats, and cooking. She is passionate about art and coffee.

R J Theodore lives in New England with her family. With Kaelyn Considine of Parvus Press, she co-hosts bi-weekly episodes of the We Make Books Podcast (wmbcast.com).

In 2018, Theodore made her publishing debut with her self-published novella THE BANTAM, and her novel FLOTSAM, Book One of the Peridot Shift series, published by Parvus Press. Book Two of the Peridot Shift series (Parvus Press), SALVAGE is now available in print and digital.

Follow Theodore’s writing process, find her on social media, and subscribe to her newsletter at rjtheodore.com.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the online classes from the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines.