Articles archived for April 2010

“Take thy plastic spade,

It is thy pencil;

Take thy seeds, thy plants,

They are thy colors.”

~William Mason, The English Garden

Spring is here and where I live, that means time spent in the garden. My family lives as eco-friendly as possible and are striving for self-sustainability – a lot of hard work in all areas, as you can imagine. This includes raising our own food: tilling, planting, weeding, tilling some more, and carrying countless buckets of water from the Amish-built windmill.

What does this have to do with writing? Everything, in my opinion.

Yesterday evening, as I got cozy on the weathered bench that’s nestled snuggly in the corner of our 100 x 100 garden area, I began to visualize zucchini, strawberries, watermelon, snap peas, peppers, onions, and all the other delicious sustenance the rich soil will produce.

As I daydreamed about smoothie and juice concoctions, salads and raw pasta, it came to me – gardening is very similar to writing!

How?

The inspiration is clear…

Seeds = Words

Each word we put on paper is like a seed sewn in our garden – our writer’s garden. Much like planting seeds in a vegetable or flower garden, our words grow, change, and become a part of something far bigger than our original thought.

Seeds (like words!) may never grow; they might be bad seeds. In that case, we simply start fresh!

Tending Our Garden

As the words are planted, they come together one-by-one, row after row. It takes time to get the plants just so-so. If you’re a perfectionist, you may even put a stake at each end and run string to guarantee a straight shot all the way.

A gardener nurtures their plants, waters them, even fertilizes and makes special bug-repelling tonics and potions to ensure they’re healthy and thrive.

As writers we do the same, making sure sentences aren’t too long, words are spelled correctly, and our grammar is top-notch.

Editing = Weeding

Sometimes there are too many words – or not enough. And much like we may dig up a plant that’s too close to another and replant it elsewhere – or fill in a scant area – we copy, cut and paste our words, sentences, or paragraphs to make our work flow better.

And then we proofread, weeding our writer’s garden, plucking away each word that doesn’t belong.

Sun + Rain = Polished Perfection

Those last few, special touches we put on our article, story, or book, is like a garden being kissed by the sun or rain – they make all our efforts flourish and shine, blossom and burst forth breathtaking beauty. Once withering plants who have cried out for vitamins and nutrients absorb sunshine and rain, they take on a whole new look. They shoot up and out, running wild and free – as they should.

It’s the last moment tidbits of inspiration our muse whispers ever so softly and sprinkles in to our thoughts, that finishes everything beautifully and makes it truly flourish.

Harvesting = Plentiful Rewards

There’s no greater joy than taking a step back and smiling when all the time, effort, and labor  – plus sweat, tears, and frustrating moments –  pay off in the end.

Whether it’s your writing or a produce- or flower-filled garden, when your harvest is ready; it’s a great feeling, a learning experience you can cherish always.

Don’t forget to stop and smell the roses - you may even want to plant your own!

What is your writer’s garden filled with? Does it need weeding? Have you planted enough seeds? Do you tend your garden lovingly – or has it withered from lack of attention? What does your harvest look like? Do tell!

Photo Credit: Simon Howden

Poetry is known as one of the hardest forms of writing to monetize. Most magazines who accept poems pay in either free copies or a small stipend. Book publishers cringe when receiving poetry book manuscripts for review, as there is little reason for them to publish any poetry unless it is by the biggest names in the poetry world. Mass market readers don’t seem to be buying poetry anymore, and bookstores seem less interested in carrying it.

So what’s a sensitive souled poetry writer to do? Shove their literary goals aside while pursuing the bigger bucks to be made in more readily accepted forms of writing?

While a writer does have to eat, they don’t have to ignore their poetic leanings for long. Carving out a few minutes a day for poetry writing will soon fill an entire book full of poetic imagery and metaphors, in need of an audience.

Writing Poetry for an Online Audience

Self-publishing is an increasingly acceptable way for writers to publish their own books, from instructional materials to memoirs to novels. WRA’s own Jennifer Greenleaf launched her own self-published books, sharing her insights on the process with us. Other authors around the world are taking publishing into their own hands, forgoing the comforts of a traditional publishing house to brave the wilds of the internet jungle.

Poetry authors can blaze their own path to publication as well. The key to any self-publishing success is building an audience receptive to your work. With poetry, this is even more critical, as most people aren’t actively searching for a new poetry book. You can create a small website showcasing a small portion of your poetry, and invite others to follow you along the path to publication. Using social media, you can determine their level of interest and excitement for poetry, and create easy ways for them to stay informed of your book’s progress. They can even become involved, spreading the word to others, or giving you suggestions on possible poetry topics.

Why Self-Publishing For Poetry?

In addition to the difficulty that poetry faces in the mass market, there are other outstanding reasons to consider if self-publishing a poetry book is right for you. When you self-publish, you retain full copyright and control of your work. Your poems can be formatted exactly the way you desire, with illustrations if you like. The book can be the right dimensions and font, and you don’t have to struggle over the details of a lengthy publishing contract. For those of us (myself included!) who enjoy having complete artistic control over their writing, self-publishing is ideal.

You can also connect to a wide variety of audiences that may enjoy your poetry throughout the internet. For example, if you have written a book of love poetry, you can promote it on blogs about romance writing or dating advice. You can join a forum for women, and let them know you’ve written a poetry book they may enjoy. There are so many available options depending on your topic and audience, that the choices are truly yours.

Would you consider self-publishing a poetry book? Do you still enjoy reading poetry, even though bookstores don’t carry many options? What are your experiences with self-publishing?

Photo Credit: FolkeB

When the urge to write poetry strikes, all I want to do is drop everything, grab a pen and paper, and start scribbling down the first thoughts that enter my mind. Writing poetry can be quite a thrill, and it is best to be prepared for when that moment hits.

However, even when I have the desire to write poetry, I sometimes have no idea what I want to write about. While leaping into poetry writing and seeing what happens can be beneficial, I often find that having an idea of what I want to write will make the process flow much more smoothly.

Here are some different ways that I choose my poetry writing topics, so I don’t miss out on the inspiration that has headed my way!

Observe the World Around You

The easiest way to choose a poetry topic is to sit down and focus on something in your immediate environment. Describe the contents of your desk, the light shining through your window, or the taste of your favorite beverage. Anything is a good topic for poetry! Even purely descriptive poetry can have a deep impact and be full of meaning.

Mundane objects can also be used in poetry as metaphors for larger, more philosophical topics. For example, a poem I wrote a long time ago was about the sugar crystals that lined the rim of my coffee cup. The crystals turned into a discussion on the hardening of our lives and ourselves over time.

Discover What Matters

Choosing meaningful subjects can bring your poetry to life. Think about what has been going on in your life that could be processed through the poetry format. Are there causes you care deeply about, or feel have not been addressed? Or have you been going through a difficult time, and need to reflect over recent events?

One unique example was a poem I read in Writer’s Digest some years ago. The poem was highlighted because it used the sestina format, repeating six lines in six different orders throughout the poem. But the topic was more interesting to me, as it was about SETI: the search for extra-terrestrial life! With poetry, the sky isn’t even the limit!

Have Some Fun

Poetry doesn’t have to be moody and serious all the time. Some of the best poems I’ve read were those when I was a child, which were lighthearted and fun. Sometimes, the poems are hidden in the guise of a story, introducing children to literature in all its forms at a young age.

Shel Silverstein is my favorite children’s poet. His poems were well crafted, engaging, and often hilarious. Another one who many not obviously be a poet is Dr. Seuss. His stories definitely did rhyme! If you’ve never tried writing funny poetry, you could always give it a try for a lighthearted change of pace.

Inspiration is Everywhere

The world is full of possible poetry ideas. It’s up to you to be open to what strikes you when you pull out your notebook. When you have the chance, explore every avenue open to you, and your poetry will take off!

What are your favorite poetry topics, to write or to read? What ideas and themes does most of your poetry revolve around? Are there topics, ideas, and metaphors you feel repeatedly drawn to when you write?

Image Credit: Blowfishsoup

I’m a fan of random and found art, bits of beauty or composition that either happen accidentally or by a solitary, unthanked and perhaps unknowing artist. There’s also random poetry in our daily lives; spotting these lines takes some practice, but it sharpens your mind as a writer and opens your creative processes to new ideas.

When you write for a living, every word is carefully chosen, and articles, novels or stories flow in a logical line. Sometimes that line becomes a rut but you can easily jog your creativity off the beaten path with some sly wordplay.

In the continuing spirit of (Inter) National Poetry Month, here’s a few ways to spot random poetry, and a couple of uses for those found bits of word art.

1. Portable signs

These signs are found everywhere outside businesses and strip malls. Sometimes the poem writes itself, like in this recent example I found locally:

Morals and mores enjoyed by leather fans at Christmas would be an acquired taste, come to think of it. Especially in Hollywood. It’s a short little freeform that makes you think, which is the point. In the cold, real world, each word was advertising a business: the leather shop, the Christmas Store, the Hollywood memorabilia place, and the gourmet food boutique. But a harried mall owner trying to squeeze everyone in probably had no idea he was creating a lovely little line of poetic whimsy.

2. Television listings

I have satellite TV, complete with an online guide to tell me what’s coming up next on each channel. If you read some of these listings together, it’s great, dramatic stuff:

I’ve added an occasional word in parentheses to connect some titles, but the meat of the tiny, lyrical meal is right there, randomly stacked on top of one another.

3. Spam

“My lips kiss you
like giraffes in the city
please her
with larger members
of the church
the word is to be free”

Whether written by a spammer with a shaky grasp of English or a frustrated poet/bot, there are some classic treats to be mined from an otherwise annoying nuisance. Enjoy the poetic lunacy but don’t ever, ever click on the links. Just look at it like you would an interesting cloud: take a mental picture, appreciate the accidental beauty, and watch it float away into the spam folder to be deleted.

Discover your own Random Poetry

Now that you see the random poetry of mangled communication everywhere, what do you do with it? Keep some stellar examples as writing prompts for a day when you’re chained down by writer’s block, or collect several and piece them together into one flowing epic. Random poetry allows you to be silly with words, so play with them like Lego blocks and build towers of weird inspiration. It will loosen your Muse, make you laugh and maybe even cause you to write a few nonsense poems of your own.

What random snippets of language have you discovered had a poetic ring to it? Share some of your own random poetry in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Animal Cleanliness by freedryk
Photo Credit: Towing Haiku by iamdonte

When I was in school, I wrote a good amount of poetry. I’ve found it to be a great way to express myself, to capture a moment in time forever on paper. I love the opportunity to craft illuminating metaphors, to play with the sounds of words, and to create impact with well-placed line breaks.

However, poetry is meant to be shared. It is a personal experience that comes from the core of your being, and the chance to share that experience with others should be welcomed. After all, you can spend countless hours crafting a poem. Why let all that work languish in a desk drawer?

My Poetry Reading

In college, I decided to attend a poetry reading, to share my work with others. I am not a great public speaker, and a poetry reading is unlike any other performance. I had been in plays during high school, but there were other people on stage with me, sharing the spotlight.

The poetry reading I went to was held in a friend’s living room, and there were only five other people in attendance. There was no spotlight, no stage, nothing to separate me from the audience. Tea and coffee were served, and we spent the first few minutes getting acquainted and admiring the lovely artwork she had in her home.

Then it was time to read poetry.

I was incredibly nervous. When I’m nervous, I tend to stutter and stumble over my words. So I took a deep breath and plunged into reading my poem (which has been lost in the process of time, so I cannot share it here).  Time seemed to stop, as everyone’s eyes were on me. The night seemed empty and cold, and nothing else mattered but getting the words out, as I had never read them aloud, not even to myself.

Then it was over. My poem was maybe two or three minutes long. Everyone complimented me on my poem, saying it was deep and insightful, everything a good poem can be.

More importantly, I had actually done it. I had written a poem, and sent it out into the universe. I shared my inner self with others, and it was a liberating yet terrifying feeling. I was out of breath, as if I had ran a marathon. And I had, but it was a marathon of the soul.

Reading Poetry for Others

So would I recommend you reading your own poetry? Absolutely. It can help you face any fears you may have about public speaking, which is a great goal in itself. Poetry is a highly personal form of writing, and sharing yourself through your poetry is a special way to connect to other people.

Poetry reading can also help you discover any awkward parts of your poem, that may need editing. Yes, poetry requires editing too, and can be the most enlightening part of the process. Using the different literary devices at your disposal can be great fun, when crafting your own poems.

Even if you’re not ready to read your poetry in front of others, reading it out loud to yourself can be a rewarding experience. You can relive any moment in time, by reading your poetry, and capturing it on an audio or video recording. You could save it for your family, or post it online for others to enjoy and comment on.

Poetry is vastly rewarding, in so many ways. Reading it aloud is something I believe everyone should try at least once. You never know what might happen!

Have you been to a poetry reading before? Or read your poetry aloud to others? Share your experiences here!

Photo Credit: paulinebalba

In part 3 of our 4-part interview with Rachel Swirsky, she discussed Secrets of Dialogue, Character, and Plot. But genre fiction — science fiction and fantasy, in particular — have their own rules for both writing and marketing your work. With more than 10 years experience as a widely-published science fiction and fantasy writer, Hugo and Nebula Award-nominee Rachel Swirsky shares her best genre-specific tips.

Dawn: Your latest novelette, “Eros, Philia, Agape,” plays with conventions established by Isaac Asimov’s Robot series. I don’t want to ask you that tired old question of “where do you get your ideas” but I am curious: Where did you get the idea for that specific story?

Rachel: The story has been compared to Asimov’s work a number of times, but I didn’t have his work in mind when I was writing. The major inspirations were two-fold.

I had recently participated in a flash fiction contest with open judging wherein there were a number of robot stories, which my friend Ann Leckie and I started calling coin-operated boy stories.

One in particular involved a woman who had ordered a robot as a sex toy, but she didn’t enjoy sex with it. She would have sex with it–which is, essentially, masturbation–but it read to me as this totally passive event, like she was having sex with the robot for the robot’s pleasure. I thought it was a bizarre construction of female sexuality. There’s this idea that women only have sex because men enjoy it–and that’s odd enough. But why would you masturbate with a robot if you didn’t get some pleasure out of it? Since the robot in the story wasn’t sentient, that’s like having sex for the dildo’s enjoyment. So that was the most shallow inspiration–my character was going to want her robot as a lover, not passively accept it for the robot’s benefit.

After I committed to writing a coin-operated boy story, I started thinking about something Octavia Butler said about how the American consciousness is shaped by slavery. She said it has distorted our ability to love. I chewed on that for a long time. In “Eros, Philia, Agape“, Lucian is, essentially, Adriana’s slave. He’s a coddled slave, and I think Adriana has made a sincere effort to give them freedom and make them equals. But she can’t really–Lucian’s origins are still in slavery.

I believe that people who love each other often wreak terrible things on each other through best intentions–and this is a story that involves that, too. They all love each other, but love is not a panacea.
I imagine the story as an essential moral ambiguity. There are no right choices for anyone to make; no ways for everyone to be healed; everything that happens involves pain. At least, that’s my interpretation. Others have read the story differently.

Dawn: It sounds like you follow the adage that a writer reads, constantly!

Rachel: This is good advice for other kinds of writers, too, but there are some reasons it’s a good idea for science fiction and fantasy writers that are specific to the genre. The kinds of technology and world-building that appear in science fiction and fantasy stories tend to build on each other in ways that you have to know if you’re going to write relevant material.

Technology that’s introduced in one set of stories–for instance, in stories by William Gibson–becomes foundational for subgenres, as Gibson’s did for cyberpunk. You don’t want to reinvent the science fictional wheel. Also, idea is primary to many science fiction and fantasy stories in a way that it’s primary to very few literary short stories. There’s a push toward innovation, to describing a kind of new technology idea that no one has ever seen before, or rendering an entirely new treatment of an old concept. You can’t innovate if you don’t know what the old material looks like.

Dawn: Yes, exposition is another challenge more prevalent in science fiction and fantasy, right?

Rachel: You have to build a world as part of your exposition. It’s a knotty problem. That’s why workshops aimed at mainstream writers sometimes fail for science fiction and fantasy writers. Most mainstream writers have never thought about how to solve exposition issues. They may also get distracted by things like not understanding what, say, a generation ship is, or that salamanders are associated with fire–things your audience would already know.

That doesn’t mean mainstream-oriented workshops can’t be useful to science fiction and fantasy authors — they have been massively useful for me — but it’s good to be aware of their limitations. Reading people who handle their exposition well (Orson Scott Card names Octavia Butler as a master at it, and I agree) seems to be the most useful tool.

Dawn: How can science fiction and fantasy writers market their work?
Rachel: There are a couple of websites– ralan.com and duotrope.com come to mind–that keep track of salient details of short story markets. Of course, they’re not going to do all the work for you. You have to figure out where to send.

It may be tempting to start with small markets where you feel like you have a higher chance, but don’t do it — a top-down marketing strategy is best. Aim high. Then, if the best market doesn’t take your stuff, try the second-best market.

You might start with Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Realms of Fantasy, Asimov’s Science Fiction and Fact, Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Interzone, Chiarascuro, and some of the other big hitters, and then make your way into the semi-pros, the well-respected token paying markets, and so on.

It’s relatively easy to figure out who the pro markets are because the Science Fiction Writers of America keeps a list of magazines that meet their qualifying criteria. Read widely, and then submit to the magazines that publish stories you like.

I do not recommend submitting to magazines whose stories you don’t like because you figure you can do better than that and they must be desperate for quality. Either they will reject you because they don’t like the kind of thing you do and you’ll feel bad, or you’ll be embarrassed by the credit later because it will associate you with fiction you think is inferior.

You can read stories and poetry by Rachel Swirsky at:

Tor.com
Subterranean Magazine
Fantasy Magazine
Weird Tales
Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Find out more at RachelSwirsky.com

Dawn: What about networking in the science fiction and fantasy community?

Rachel: Find places where science fiction and fantasy writers hang out, on Absolute Write, or Livejournal, or the Codex Writers Group if you qualify to join it–or wherever else–and keep your ear to the ground. Short story writers talk about magazines constantly, so you’ll learn the buzz. Those are the best methods, but if you’re still looking for stuff, I also recently wrote a brief article at Ecstatic Days about some of the ways I decide where to submit my work that lists a number of smaller magazines I like.

When writers get together, we talk and talk. Perhaps because we spend so much time normally behind our keyboards typing? A quick interview about Science Fiction and Fantasy author Rachel Swirsky’s recent Hugo and Nebula Award nominations turned into a four-part series with too much useful information to waste. Here, she shares her best advice on the craft of writing genre fiction.

What advice do you have for beginning writers beginning to develop skill at dialogue, plot and character development?

Rachel Swirsky on dialogue… I think the best dialogue approach is probably eavesdropping. Go into a public place with a notebook; write down what you hear. Or take the organic approach to it–if you’re bored in line at the bank, or sitting in the airport, or whatever, just listen to people’s conversations. Do not–obviously–be a jerk about it.

I’d also say that the advice that people rarely speak in complete sentences is only somewhat helpful. When I first heard that, I started writing everyone as if they spoke in rushed, overlapping sentence fragments, and it was like my characters had all developed nasty anxiety disorders. Writing fiction doesn’t always mean being totally mimetic. You don’t want to, for instance, write in as many “um”s as people actually speak. You have to find a way to make the dialogue sound real, and also sound good on the page. Eavesdrop anyway.

On character development… Start with Nancy Kress’s Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints. Also, it can be useful for new writers to write up a profile of your character, particularly if you’re doing genre fiction and you never actually show them at “normal.” They may be space adventuring now, but what was their home life like? Where did they come from? Do they get along with their brothers? What are their hobbies? I always liked to ask my students what would a character kill for? What would they die for? Are they the same thing or different? Why?

On Plot… Plot is weird because it means different things to different people in different stories in different genres. If you’re writing a literary story, it’s perfectly legitimate to use some kind of non-traditional plot that would map out as a checkmark if you made a graph of how the tension mounts. When people say they want to learn to plot, though, usually they mean that they want to learn how to plot traditionally–which is a good tool to have, since then you can use traditional plotting when you want to, and set it aside when you don’t.

Start by looking at the traditional plot arc, with exposition, rising action, climax, denouement, and ending. Map your stories–do they fit it? How can they? Do outlines, even if you hate them. Remember it’s a writing exercise. Then outline your finished stories–do the outlines look like exciting plots? Look at the try/fail method which I first learned about in Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. It involves your character wanting something, and then trying to get it and failing and making things worse. You do that a couple times, until the climax character finally succeeds (in a happy ending) or fails (in a tragic one).

The best formula I was ever given is used in screenwriting. Your character is introduced to the plot at about fifteen minutes in, at the point of complication, and soon thereafter is at the point of no return, where they can’t get out of the plot. Then, at the halfway point, you resolve the initial plot question, and reverse or complicate it. So, for instance in When Harry Met Sally, the question at the start is will they get together, and then at the halfway becomes, will they stay together?

You can read stories and poetry by Rachel Swirsky at:

Tor.com
Subterranean Magazine
Fantasy Magazine
Weird Tales
Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Find out more at RachelSwirsky.com

Learn basic plotting tools like reversals, when something that should be good turns out to be bad instead (or vice versa), and complications, which is when things get even worse than they were. Remember that coincidence is a great tool for getting your characters into worse trouble, but a poor tool for getting them out of it. Then there’s Octavia Butler‘s much simpler, but equally important rule: “Don’t bore the reader.”

You may or may not know that April is Earth Month. In fact, April 22 is Earth Day. And I realize living green isn’t always a writerly interest, but I think it should be.

A while back, Rebecca – the fantabulous Aussie gal who owns Writer’s Round-About – and I were chatting away and I mentioned something about how much paper I felt I was wasting because I print every clip of my work when it’s published—and every single query or rejection letter I receive via e-mail.

Rebecca urged me to take advantage of electronic storage. Of course, I’m a hands-on kind of gal. I want to hold and touch my work—not just look at it on a computer screen. But the more I thought about what Rebecca said, the more I knew in my heart it made sense. Why waste trees when I really didn’t have to.

There are many ways to save our work
(as Rebecca recommended during our discussion):

• e-mail
• computer
• external hard drive
• flash drive
• PDF files
• Online storage systems
• etc.

As long as you are faithful in backing up your work you’ll always have access to it—and you’ll be saving trees and our beautiful environment while you’re at it!

Other ways writers can honor Earth Month:

1. Recycle. There are a lot of times writers simply must print out either their work or something to do with it—like a query letter. During those times, recycle any paper that doesn’t get sent off (like if you proofread and need to print out a new copy). You can also recycle other things (like: glass, cans, etc.) and/or buy recycled or used office equipment.
2. Eat local and green. The more produce you eat, the happier our environment will be. If you eat at your desk, be sure to keep plenty of fresh veggies and fruit available so you can grab ‘em when you need ‘em. Make yourself a big salad for lunch or dinner and top with your choice of protein. Just because you’re a busy business owner, doesn’t mean you have to live on coffee from the café around the corner and donuts.
3. Buy e-books or invest in a Kindle. Electronic books are all the rage these days. It seems writers and authors of all genres are publishing more electronically than ever before. And if you travel a lot, what better way to catch the latest New York Times Best Seller or keep up with the your favorite author? It’s eco-friendly reading!
4. Cover up or open the windows. Freelancers spend a great deal of time at home. Sometimes it’s tempting to keep ourselves super cool in the hotter months or cozy warm in the winter. Why not add an extra layer of clothes in the winter and invite in the breeze during summer? Not only is it actually healthier for us but you’ll be walking lighter on Mother Earth!
5. Support your local library. You may be tempted to splurge every time a new Writer’s Market or novel comes out—but you don’t have to. Simply make your library a new hangout and take advantage of all the many books and magazines they offer. Most even have computers and wireless Internet!

You could also use Google Notebook or makes notes on your BlackBerry or iPhone instead of wasting a lot of paper for to-do lists and reminders.

How do you live a green-writer lifestyle? What eco-friendly freelance business tips have you considered? And did you even know there was such a thing as Earth Day or Earth Month? Give me the dirt!

Photo Credit: Salvatore Vuono

In the first part of our series featuring science fiction and fantasy author Rachel Swirsky, the young talent revealed a collection of her poetry and short stories entitled “Through the Drowsy Dark” will be released by Aqueduct Press at the end of May. This got us talking about the differences between poetry and prose, if prose should be poetic, and how to achieve that effect in your work.

Dawn: Since it’s National Poetry Month… what are the similarities and differences between writing poetry and short fiction?

Rachel: I think poetry is intensely useful for fiction writers. It teaches one how to create images that are concrete rather than abstract, to fully exploit each word, and to understand language on the detail-level. Poetry spoils me, because you can work on each word until it’s perfect. You can rewrite a poem dozens or hundreds of times to make sure each word is exactly what you want it to be.

Dawn: You can’t do that in a short story…

Rachel: Once you’re dealing with thousands of words in short stories, you can’t give each phrase the same level of attention. With novels, there’s even less ability to focus on the micro-level.

When I took a novel workshop at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Lan Samantha Chang said that one of the most common difficulties she sees short story writers having with the novel form is letting go of their control. Novels are too long to perfect word by word, and usually too much for a writer to keep in mind all at once in the way you can with a short story (or so I’m told).

Poetry is the opposite: you have an extremely high degree of control over the words and it’s fairly easy to keep the whole thing in mind at once, or even to memorize the whole project if you want to. Sometimes that control can be maddening if you can’t create the effect you want, and I know there have been plenty of times when I’ve caught myself retyping the same three words over and over, changing them slightly and then changing them back, until I’m completely frustrated. This is usually a good time to walk away.

Dawn: Your prose is very poetic — one of the things I love about it. Do you make a conscious effort to do that?

Rachel: I do make an effort to be poetic in what I write. Which is to say, poetry is extremely conscious of the language it uses to convey ideas. It’s easier for people writing prose to abstract themselves from the means of communication, because prose is an unmarked form–we use it when we speak, and when we write notes to each other, and when we write up reports at work. It’s ubiquitous, so we can pretend it’s not even there, much like fish probably don’t think, “Hey, I’m swimming through the water” every thirty seconds. But it is there.

Dawn: I think it’s easier to “try” to abstract ourselves from the means of communication. But truly transparent prose can take as much work as poetic prose. Otherwise, it looks self-conscious…

Rachel: Transparent prose attempts to use language in a way that the audience won’t notice–to take advantage of the ubiquity of the medium so it disappears. This can be a beautiful technique. Prose that we consider poetic, or sometimes I hear people use the term self-conscious, is playing more overtly with the medium of language.

Different styles have different kinds of effects on the reader, and may play better or worse with the kind of content you’re trying to express. I try to think about what effect I’m having and what effect I’m trying to create, and then I usually spend a lot of time with the sentence-level language to make sure that it’s doing what I want it to.

Dawn: What do you find most challenging about fiction – the language, plot, characters, world-building or something else?

Rachel: That depends on the story. I probably spend more time on language than on anything else, but I don’t tend to find it challenging, per se.

I don’t feel like I have a lot of problems understanding characters, although relaying that understanding on the page is a different challenge.

I tend to come into stories with plot arcs I already understand, but sometimes the exact process of how to show the characters getting from 60% of the way through the story to 80% can be very difficult for me. Beginnings, early middles, and endings are easy–it’s that latter middle part of the arc which seems to sag. I don’t even want to know what that’s going to be like on a 100,000-word novel instead of a 2,000- to 10,000-word short story.

I wish I was better at dialogue. I think I write dialogue decently enough, but when you read the work of someone who really has an ear for it, it can be this astonishing, amazing thing. Andy Duncan captures people’s speech in ways that feel dynamic, fresh, novel, and totally real–he writes the dialogue equivalent of surprising yet inevitable endings. His dialogue is a small, focused, surprise–but then you realize the character could never speak any other way.

You can read stories and poetry by Rachel Swirsky at:

Tor.com
Subterranean Magazine
Fantasy Magazine
Weird Tales
Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Find out more at RachelSwirsky.com

I also really wish I could do tight, focused plotting — the kinds of plots you find in farces or murder mysteries. I’ve been watching episodes of Coupling and Doctor Who by Steven Moffat, and he hits the plot points with just the right amount of precision and wit, with never a wasted word. I want to know how to do that.

Success stories in genre fiction are rare, but inspirational. It’s not every day we see a J.K. Rowling gain monumental fame and wealth from one big hit, then create an entire best-selling series and franchise around her ideas.

Most genre writers build up a stable career slowly, garnering publishing credits, earning positive reviews for their work, and one day, they look around and realize: “I’m a successful fiction writer.” But self-doubt lingers, because, after all, we’re writers. Then a crowning achievement occurs, something like a Hugo nomination, and it really hits home.

This is where young Rachel Swirsky, full-time science fiction and fantasy writer, finds herself today. She’s got a hefty list of publishing credits for short fiction to her name, a collection of short fiction and poetry on the horizon from Aqueduct Press and — most recently — Hugo and Nebula Award nominations.

Rachel took time from her busy schedule to talk to us in this four-part interview, with in-depth advice on how to become a science fiction and fantasy writer, how to market your work, and the craft of writing fiction and poetry.  If you’d like to learn more about Rachel, please visit Rachel’s blog.

Dawn: Let’s start with the big news. You were nominated for a Hugo for your novelette, “Eros, Philia, Agape“. What was the process for that?

Rachel: The Hugos are selected by people who attend the Worldcon Science Fiction Convention. Attending and supporting members are eligible to recommend stories they’d like to see on the ballot, and the ones with the most recommendations are nominated. The same pool of people will also select the winner.


Dawn: Eros, Philia, Agape was published on the Tor website–is it available in print too? What was the process to have it accepted?

Rachel: [Tor Editor] Patrick Nielsen Hayden invited me to submit a few months before Tor.com was launched. I eventually sent him both “Eros, Philia, Agape,” which has been nominated for the Hugo award, and somewhat later, “A Memory of Wind,” which has been nominated for the Nebula award. Tor.com is an online magazine, so the stories were first published online. Tor.com has also made them available in a number of downloadable formats, including PDF and as audio fiction MP3s.

Dawn: Your career has really taken off in the past few years. What — besides sheer writing talent — got you where you are now?

Rachel: A big turning point for me was attending the Clarion West Writing Workshop in 2005. Our first instructor was Octavia Butler, and she asked all the students what our long term goals were. I said I’d be happy with something modest like publishing a couple of stories. She said everyone should try to shoot upwards, to expect the best from their careers. Why not try to be full-time writers?

That conversation–along with a number of others at Clarion West–helped me to look at my writing from a more professional angle. Everyone can improve their writing technique, of course, but by that point I had the basics. I needed to take myself seriously–to write, submit, and write more, to take the writing seriously as a job. Within a couple months of making that decision, I started seeing sales, and eventually those started accumulating faster.

Dawn: So you’re writing fiction full-time now?

Rachel: Yes. In 2006, I went through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with a teaching fellowship. In 2008, I got married and my husband and I moved to Bakersfield, California. He works full-time as a geologist, and I write full-time. I’d like to teach fiction part-time at the college level, as I did during grad school, and hopefully that will work out in the future.

You can read stories and poetry by Rachel Swirsky at:

Tor.com
Subterranean Magazine
Fantasy Magazine
Weird Tales
Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Find out more at RachelSwirsky.com

Dawn: What are your goals now? Is a novel in the plans?

Rachel: A collection of my poetry and short stories, THROUGH THE DROWSY DARK, is coming out from Aqueduct Press at the end of May. I’m still working on a number of short stories, novelettes, and novellas–but I am thinking about novels.

A lot of writers find they trend more toward working with either short stories or novels. For instance, it’s pretty common to hear people say that novels are much easier to write than short stories. I’m the opposite; my intuitive grasp of fiction trends toward shorter lengths. Some writers never really transition from one form to the other, but there are also plenty of people who are dexterous enough as storytellers to move back and forth between the two forms, seemingly effortlessly. I’ve spent a lot of time working on short stories, and I think it will take a commensurate amount of effort to understand novels. But I’m hoping the time and effort will pay off.