Yet another Villa Diodati workshop behind me, and once more it was a wonderful experience: friends, great conversation, good food, and geekiness aplenty. Better still: this may have been the most productive VD of the 10.

As usual, a group of Villa Diodati speculative fiction writers—myself among them—gathered in an idyllic location (in this case, a quaint English cottage on the shore of a fishing pond) and gorged on good food and good company. As usual, mornings were for critiquing the short stories, novel outlines, and chapters everyone had submitted—and everyone else had had to read and critique—in advance. As usual, quality of the fiction was awesome (which should not keep amazing me; we had two Nebula nominees at the workshop and—at least—one more in the group).

What was unusual about this tenth Villa Diodati workshop was that the afternoons consisted, by unanimous vote, of writing, writing, and then more writing*. After lunch every day, we got together and announced that day’s targets to the group. Before dinner, we bragged about our afternoon achievements.

I’m not sure how many words of fiction were produced in this fashion, but by another statistic, the success and productivity of VD10 are readily apparent. Helped along by the Monday Submission Party**, and by the Foreign Market List***, the seven**** participants submitted a total of 30 pieces of fiction to various authors and markets. That’s more than four per writer! And even more amazing: at least two of those submissions—so far, and to my knowledge—resulted in sales, one of those even while we were all still at the cottage!

For my own part, I used one afternoon writing marathon to work the critiquing feedback I got from the group into a final version of Mashup. That particular story is now on its third submission. And during the Submission Party, I spelled the FML and found no less than six European and Oriental markets that might be interested in publishing translations of my previously published stories. Which makes seven submissions for me!

And still we found time for delicious meals and good conversation!

* As opposed to the writing exercizes, brainstorming, fun and games, and other activities we had at previous installments.

** Rest assured this does not involve leather, chains and/or whips; it’s not that kind of submission.

*** A wonderful web listing of markets (publications) around the globe that buy and translate previously published English-language fiction.

**** On the photo, from left to right: John Olsen, yours truly (top), Ruth Nestvold (bottom), Sylvia Spruck Wrightley, Nebula-nominees Nancy Fulda and Aliette de Bodard, and Stephen Gaskell (top).

Finally! My author copies of Space & Time Magazine issue #116, which includes my story Prisoner of war, are here! Better still: they invited an illustrator to draw for the story, and the result is disturbing and unsettling: in other words, perfectly suited to the story! Thank you, Alfred Klosterman!

We’re living in the future…

Springsteen got it right on his Magic album. We are living in the future. Case in point: the proof is no longer in the pudding, but in the cloud, or rather, the Cloud.

In preparation for the 10th Villa Diodati Writers Workshop, 21-24 April in Southern England, all participants are expected to submit a piece of writing (short story, novel chapters or what have you) for critiquing by the others. With seven participants, I have the challenging task of A. producing a bit of fiction of my own, and B. reading and critiquing the six works by my fellow participants. Challenging, because between a demanding job, a fairly long commute, two little kids, and a lovely wife I also want to spend some time with, life leaves precious little time for this stuff.

However, thanks to the Cloud—and the fact that my commute is by train—the work is coming along nicely.

Ingredients:

• A laptop
• An Android smartphone
• A Kindle e-reader
• And last but not least, the two tools that make it all easy: Dropbox and Evernote!

Writing recipe:

• Commute first class for a week and use the quiet and extra space for spread-out laptop writing.
• Connect the laptop to the smartphone for Internet access.
• No worries about backing up my fiction: Dropbox syncs transparently with the Cloud, and so to my other devices , as I write.
• Proofread my story on my laptop, or on my Smartphone, whichever is handy, or e-mail it to my Kindle for even more comfortable reading.

Critiquing recipe:

• Download the other participants’ fiction.
• E-mail the stuff to my Kindle for reading on the train (just in case I decide not to bring my laptop).
• Read on the train, and discover that I want to make some critiquing notes after all (which I can’t on my Kindle).
• Launch Evernote on my Smartphone, and make notes in that marvellous app.
• Spare no thought for getting the notes to my laptop; Evernote syncs them, through the Cloud again, to any other of my devices that have Evernote installed.
• At home, boot up my laptop, and find everything on there, ready for further work.

No USB sticks, no e-mailing back and forth (not counting the unavoidable Kindle step); just work, and save, and like magic, my story, my notes, and everything else in my Dropbox and Evernote end up on all my devices. It’s less hassle, and leaves more brain cells free for actual writing/critiquing.

And best of all: the apps are free! (Though the laptop, smartphone and Kindle are not…)

So what are you waiting for?

Readers are stupid.

This must have been the rule behind the rule, the one Terry Goodkind lived and wrote by when he conceived of Wizard’s First Rule. Wizard’s First Rule is the first volume in his Jordanesque Sword of Truth series, and the book annoyed me in more ways than I thought possible.

Seen through one’s lashes, Wizard’s First Rule is a dime-a-dozen epic fantasy. Yes, there’s the unremarkable-protagonist-turned-Chosen. (Rand al Thor, anyone?) Yes, there’s the friendly neighborhood magician slash powerful wizard. (Gandalf, anyone?) Yes, there’s the evil lord aspiring to world domination (Ragoth Maugrim, anyone? Though with a huge dash of Darth Vader thrown in.) A group of heroes forms, or should I say a Fellowship? They embark upon a quest to retrieve a ring  magic sword  scandalous tape recording  competitor’s recipe  magical box  MacGuffin*.

There’s adventure, misadventure, opposition, help from unexpected corners. There is a dragon. There is even—shame on you, Terry, for reusing this tiresome cliche—the primitive tribe who first decline to aid the protagonist, whereupon disaster narrowly deflected by the protagonist convinces them otherwise. There is—and I can say this without any risk whatsoever of giving anything away—the eventual defeat of Sauron  Ragoth  Brandin***  Warlock Lord  Darken Rahl through a poignant and significant reversal. There is a resolved love angle. There is even the Return of the King.

All this just proves that Goodkind was very clever indeed when he cashed in the largest advance ever given a debut author for his dime-a-dozen epic.

That’s not what’s annoying. What’s annoying is that Goodkind has applied the Wizard’s First Rule from the book to his readers.

In the narrative, much is made of Wizard’s First Rule, which is the most powerful rule a Wizard can take advantage of. The rule is simply this: people are stupid. In the book, the protagonist has ample opportunity to capitalize on this. But Goodkind tries the same with his plot twists. Anywhere there’s a sudden revelation, a turnabout, a plot device, the rhythm of the prose announces it as something new, exciting and unexpected about to happen. But in most cases, the reader would need major brain damage to fail to see it coming a mile away.

And this rather offensive underestimation of his readers’ intelligence is not the only reason why Goodkind’s First Rule is bad, naughty, bad. More seriously, it also destroys the credibility of his main characters. If the reader can see it coming, the carefully established wisdom and/or street smarts of the heroes collapse like a house of cards: oh, he can’t be that clever after all if he was surprised by this obvious turn of events.

HERE BE SPOILERS!!

I won’t bore you with a long, long list of examples of main character idiocy (or reader patronizing). But the final victory over the Evil Overlord deserves special mention. It’s a bit like that three-door quiz show. Behind door A, world domination! Behind door B, instant death! Behind door C, destruction of the entire world! Which door will the candidate choose? Of course, the candidate—the Evil Overlord, EO—wants world domination, but doesn’t know which door is which. But in the book, the protagonist does! Or rather, for reasons too tedious to go into, he has memorized the instruction manual, word for word.

The resolution of the plot hinges on this choice the EO needs to make, and the knowledge residing inside the protagonist’s head. And that’s where Goodkind’s assumption of reader stupidity really flies out of control.

First, the book wants us to accept that the protagonist has no choice but to go to the EO and recite the manual. For the sake of my argument, let’s accept that, although the reasoning there is flimsy to the point of full transparancy.

For page after page (and I’m talking the final 5-10% of the book here), the protagonist drags his feet and bites his nails, worrying and fretting about the inevitable time when he will have to return to EO and do his recital.

And then, just before the moment supreme, he has an epiphany! Triggered by his all-consuming love for his love interest—and also by some weeks of prolonged and gruesome torture—he suddenly sits up and thinks: I could lie!

Well duh, Richard!

So he meets the EO, and the EO says:

Soooo, Richard… Tell me! Behind which door is World Domination?”

“Let me see,” says Richard. “Ah, I remember! Door B!”

“Nooooo!” the EO cries as he opens door B and perishes.

“Gotcha!” Richard says.

END SPOILER ALERT

Come on, Terry! That was beyond lame!

Soo…

If you don’t mind having your intelligence insulted for 500 pages, by all means read this fine, though unremarkable epic fantasy.

If, on the other hand, you enjoy being made to think by an author, steer clear of this book. Better still, join me in chanting Fantasy Reader’s First Rule:

“Terry Goodkind is stupid!”

* In fact, the only thing unusual about this wholly unremarkable epic fantasy is that the protagonist is the MacGuffin.**

** That, and the 50 pages of torture porn that suddenly make an appearance somewhere at the end.

*** Brandin of Ygrath, one of the two evil overlords of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana, is listed here only to give me the opportunity to remark in this footnote that his mention in this review is wholly undeserved, seeing as how in Tigana, Kay created a very non-standard fantasy epic with highly non-standard bad guys. In fact, if you’re into fantasy, you’re better off ignoring this review altogether and ordering a copy of Tigana.

Mashup (working title Opening Night) stands complete at 4,900 words. An upbeat tale of gadgetry, friendship, the New York club scene, young love, and Jennifer Connelly*. And underwear**. Things I’ve learned while writing this story on the commuter train to work and back last week:

• Writing is next to impossible on a widescreen laptop in second class during rush hour.
• In first class, writing is easy and productive***.
• An average production of 500 words is doable during my 45-minute commute, with peak production up to 900 words****.
• Changing from first to third person perspective is tedious work, especially since I can’t stop myself from reverting for first person after every bit of dialogue*****.
• I want an iPad.

It’s another story of above-average silliness, after Beans and marbles, What happened while Don was watching the game, and Trick or treat. Let’s see what my Villa Diodati friends say about it in two weeks.

* Again. Color me obsessed, but in my defense, I should state that it’s not the lady herself who keeps popping up in my writing mind, but anything related to Labyrinth.

** Though not, I’m sad to report, Jennifer Connelly’s underwear.

*** But affordable only for the week it took me to write Mashup, not as a permanent solution.

**** Who would have thought something good could come of Dutch railway delays?

***** If only my main character wouldn’t say ‘I’ as much as he does…

… living for the kill, you-ooh, oo-oo-oo…*

Prisoner of War, with its ink still wet in issue #116 of Space and Time Magazine, has already racked up its first review. (Well, the issue has, and since Prisoner is in there…) SFRevu said some nice things about it:

I won't spoil things further and just say this was an imaginative, well-told tale.

Read the whole review here.

* In case you were wondering what prompted this atrocity against John Lennon’s most famous song: the story is in fact about murderous children.

It may have taken them all of two years, but as promised, Space and Time Magazine finally got around to publishing Prisoner of War. Look for it in issue #116 of this venerable publication!

If you have a chance to read it, expect children, blood, depression, sunshine, and a Medieval castle. Seriously. (Though perhaps it’s not quite as weird and psychedelic as the cover illustration of its issue.) Maybe that’s why it took seven years and twice as many submissions before it got snapped up…

In which writing pays for reading…

Another sale! Hard on the heels of Prisoner of War, which sold two days earlier, I got the wonderful, happy-dance-worthy news that Friendly Fire would be bought by the Machine of Death editors.

The maiden, in this case, is Linda, and the death is predicted by the eponymous Machine of Death, a device that predicts, with unfailing accuracy and infuriating irony, the manner of one’s death from a drop of blood. The MoD editors published a marvellous anthology of stories around this queer-but-inspiring theme in 2010, and were so encouraged by its success* that they put out a call for submissions last year for a second volume.

The plot that sprang into my head fully formed seemed so obvious to me that I was afraid the first volume would have numerous similar stories. However, despite a story in there with the same title I’d already claimed in my mind, nothing in the first book came close. Ha! So I checked with the editors if they would mind having the same title in the second volume. They wouldn’t, so I went ahead and wrote it.

And they bought it! Though it is, and may forever be, the oddest sale of my career. The contract offer stated that they loved the story, but were afraid it didn’t fit in the second volume, but wanted to buy it anyway and decide what to do with it later. A month later, I had parted with the rights, they had parted with the money, and I was the proud owner of a Kindle e-reader plus assorted accessories.

* It really is a brilliant anthology. Technically, it’s all SF, but such varied, and thought-provoking, and exuberant SF, that even my wife—a notorious SF non-reader—loved it.

Sale!

A hugely disloyal member of the marvellous online writers group Codex, when I was still fairly active there I participated in the 2005 Halloween contest. The contest challenge that year was to write a Halloween story based on a ‘seed’, something to prod the muse, provided by another participant. Seeds could be anything from pictures to character descriptions to scene settings. Or even, as I got, a list of items and a bit of dialogue.

The list of items fellow Codexian David Gill provided was:

• human femur
• birthday cake
• lunch box
• an unopened letter
• a broken light bulb
• a cat

The dialogue:

“It itches.”

“For God sake, don't scratch.”

The story inspired by this list and dialogue, Trick or treat, which also featured candy wrappers, wine, blood, and Gone with the wind, didn’t do much in the Codex contest, but was accepted for publication today by Big Pulp Magazine.

It all goes to show that Robert A. Heinlein had the right idea, when he formulated his five rules of writing (particularly rule #5):

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must submit what you finish.
5. You must keep submitting until sold.

At last, another of my stories in print! What happened while Don was watching the game saw the light today, when the Summer 2011 issue of Big Pulp Magazine was published.

It’s a lighthearted tale of marriage, parenting, miscommunication, and the Goblins that live under automated car parkings. And something billows in it, which is a dream come true for me: I’ve always wanted to have something billow in my fiction.

To purchase the magazine containing this billowing tale, go to any of the Stateside bookstores listed here. Or, if you happen to be into that, the magazine is also available from Lulu!

Better still: I’ll receive my author copies soon, and will then come up with an appropriate contestlet to offer you the chance to win a copy.

PS: The red catsuited chick is not from my story, more’s the pity, though my protagonist does dream of herself as such a heroin.