Why I'm not doing NaNoWriMo

  • I started writing Seeds of Calamity over a month ago, and the (slow) writing pace I am setting will probably require me to write at least through January. Rushing to finish by the end of November would result in an inferior product, in addition to stretching my sanity to its limits.
  • My slower writing pace (relative to the 1,000+ words per day I set when writing Tendrils to the Men) is due to writing in a different style and family and church commitments impinging on my writing time.
  • Tendrils was bursting from me when I spontaneously decided to write it in January. Seeds so far has not had that driving force behind it.
  • Last, but not least, my wife and I have a baby due on Thanksgiving, which shortens my November writing time to a mere 3 weeks. That doesn't account for the time needed to prepare the house. After the baby is born, I think my hands will be more full of my 2-year-old daughter than the baby. She's going to have to learn to be less reliant on Mommy and be more reliant on Daddy.

Despite the slow writing pace for Seeds, I'm not the least bit discouraged. If there is a hump to get over in the writing of a book, I'm over it. I am currently on chapter 4 of a planned 15 chapters. The two leading characters are defined and their arcs are set in motion. I have only begun to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the setting. The out-there sci-fi elements that I find exciting are just around the corner. I am learning some lessons in writing this book, which I will explain in a later post.

For your edification, here's the prologue of Seeds of Calamity.

Prologue
First Calamity at Artynia


As she did after every dust storm, Regan climbed the steep switchbacks and aluminum ladders tied end to end out of the canyon. Slung over her shoulder was a shovel and a land-handled brush. They tapped the back of her helmet as she clambered over a squat boulder jutting out of the rock.

Her clunky boots and gloves required she move with caution, double-checking her foot and hand placement before applying her weight. The dirt layered on top of carbon dioxide frost made the trail slippery.

But she was good at this. She was a firsty. Her limbs were thin and willowy, perfect for spanning holds in the cliff wall, easy to twist and fit in narrow spaces. The town physician said she would grow up to be taller than her Earthborn father, and her build was, at best, average among her peers.

Her stubbornness was decidedly above average. That’s why the governor had let her have this job, despite his misgivings about risking the health of a “precious young lady,” a status that relegated most adolescents of her sex to domestic endeavors. Ironic that the place of her birth shaped her body for physical tasks that her specialization as a female demanded she refrain from. As far as she was concerned, that was a long, long way off.

Far off to her right, Torrance shimmied up the funicular rail, which rose up the sheer cliff face from the town to the plain above. He blasted the track and cable with compressed air, sending up puffs of red dust. Because he was a boy, Torrance had been given the more dangerous job, even though she had demonstrated she was the better climber.

The dust that didn’t disperse and fall into the canyon stuck to Torrance’s body, camouflaging him against the red canyon wall. If he didn’t turn the compressed air on himself, the dust could penetrate the fittings in his activity suit, like water seeping into a leaky submarine, as her dad said. (One of his many tales from Earth that seemed more fantasy than reality. Water in such quantity that it filled entire basins? Regan would believe it when she saw it.)

She didn’t like talking while she was out here, preferring to take advantage of the solitude while away from the crowded town. Nevertheless, she knew what radio channel Torrance was using, in case they needed each other.

She cleared the evening shadow cast by the opposite wall of the canyon. The frost was not a factor anymore, as it evaporated within minutes of being touched by the Sun, even when it was covered in dirt. She jogged, no longer requiring the use of her hands on this less exposed part of the canyon wall.

Normally she would have been able to see the distant, rounded peak of Alba Mons looming behind the solar farm, but all she could see was the dust storm’s ruddy smear. Unobscured views north, west, and south revealed a broad lava plain, featureless but for the sandstone hills to the north and the canyon, the 300-mile scar that Regan and her people called home.

She stopped at the first solar cell, which had an inch-thick dusting on its flat surface. She unslung the shovel and stuck it in the red dirt next to the 3-inch pipe. All the electric current from the solar farm routed through a cable in that pipe. It disappeared under the topsoil and ran along the rim of the canyon to meet the rail west of the airfield. After clearing the solar cells and digging out the cable, she would meet Torrance there and ride the rail back into town.

She brushed the cell, exposing the blue, reflective monocrystalline silicon, careful so as not to touch it with any part of her suit. Before she finished, the cell’s motor started to grind, and the broad-faced panel swiveled to face the Sun in the clear, amber sky, shedding the top layer of dust built up on it.

There were more than 2,000 cells laid out in a rectangular grid above Artynia Catena. Regan proceeded along the outer row of cells with her brush. As the first light in days touched their photovoltaic surfaces, they turned to face the brightest light source in the sky.

She made the turn at the far end of the grid. To her surprise, the solar cells in the first row pivoted all at once, like a line of soldiers making an about-face. Regan caught sight of an emerald light above the western horizon, larger and brighter than the Sun.

Her mouth fell open, and she absently dropped the brush in the dirt.

The light grew brighter while moving to her right. It left a turbulent trail of dark smoke in the sky. The ground trembled, like during the graben collapse that shook the town last year. The descending object’s incredible speed became apparent as it drew closer, crossing over the canyon in less than a second. The radio hissed plaintively. Regan pinched her eyes shut to the now blinding light.

The ground heaved violently, throwing her to the ground. Something heavy fell on top of her. A stabbing pain shot up the backs of her thighs.

She twisted out from underneath the downed solar panel and stumbled toward the canyon, fighting a sudden onset of stiffness in her hamstrings and a deep rumbling through the ground. A massive, expanding plume of dirt raced toward her, like a dust storm more violent than any she had seen. It blanketed Monviso, the gateway to the Cottian Hills, a mere 7 miles away.

She hastened to the cliff’s edge, picking up the shovel on her way. She keyed the radio and shouted over the rumble generated by the quake and the gathering pressure wave. “Torrance!”

The boy’s voice shuddered with fright. “Regan! What’s happening?”

“I don’t know! Something fell out of the sky and there’s a storm headed this way!”

She faltered as she reached the canyon rim. The quake was dislodging loose boulders and dirt from the cliff. Two connected ladders twisted in the collapsing rubble, the beams pinching shut like a drawing compass.

She spotted Torrance clinging to the funicular rail 500 feet above the canyon floor. Even from a mile away, Regan observed the joists buckling, bowing the heavy iron rail like a clothesline.

“Hold on!” she said, veering left. She could reach the rail terminus in 5 minutes at a dead sprint, then ride the platform down. The dusty rail would degrade the platform’s wheels, but at least she and Torrance would be safe inside the dome.

“Don’t!” Torrance screamed. “The rail won’t hold!”

No sooner had his words reached Regan than the rail broke. The supports on either side of the widening break leaned away from Regan, snapping cleanly from their bases. Regan watched in terror as the rail bearing Torrance gathered speed and broke up further against the opposite cliff wall. He disappeared in the red haze rising from the rubble.

“No!” she cried out, reaching her hand over the void.

She glanced at the advancing plume. It had reached the edge of the solar farm. Her mind raced as she realized there was no way she was going to make it to safety.

She retreated a hundred feet from the cliff’s edge, still holding her shovel. She found a patch of soft dirt and jabbed the blade down as hard she could. Quickly she retrieved a square foil sheet from a suit pocket and cocooned it around her, pinching the outer seams shut in her clenched fist.

The plume struck. Her body rolled and her helmet struck the shovel handle. Blood vessels in her neck burst and spread warmth and numbness simultaneously. Then everything went dark.

Let me know what you think in the comment section below! I'll reply to you as soon as I can.

Readers' differing reactions to detail

It's wild getting feedback on your book. As the writer, you have goals you want to achieve, and you have a good idea by the time you finish writing whether you succeeded or failed. But readers don't care about your goals. I forget where I read it, but writers don't know what they've written until the readers tell them. There's some truth to that.

Because Tendrils to the Moon ended up being 40 percent longer than the book I set out to write initially, I think it's a tad long-winded for the story it tells. The prose can be tightened up. I also regret the plethora of secondary characters, some of whom disappear by the third act.

One reader, who is a friend, enthused about the book's procedural detail and realism, but wanted an equal level of description of character appearance and background, especially for secondary characters. He explained it was difficult to visualize the people, who needed to stand out more because of the stark environments they often were in.

Character detail is pretty spare in Tendrils. Ames is a big, physically fit guy in his late 40s. Sheridan is 50 and has sunken eyes and gray hair. Reuben is old and thin. Shaun is young and thick-chested, and has a Sun tattoo on his neck. Miranda is a pubescent girl with long red hair. Jeremiah is a small boy with freckles and brown hair. Rosco has a black mustache. Therese is short and buxom. Etc. Although I am a visual person, very few of the character details I included were intended to help visualize the character. They were intended to build the character. Their actions come first; traits are attributed by necessity.

On the other hand, another reader told me that the level of detail in Tendrils draws out the story too much. "Joe," this reader told me, "why can't you just say, 'the ship docked to the flotilla'?" In the first chapter I spent a few thousand words describing this process: the launch into a higher orbit, vector-matching the flotilla, docking, and finally the boarding protocol.

I get it. The level of detail extends many scenes and demands the reader's focus. But I think of how losing the grainy procedural detail would harm the book, and I couldn't possibly move away from that. It does more than build out the fictional world. The actions the characters take and the words they speak during these moments reveal their personalities and how they relate to one another. That depth is a strength of Tendrils that I am loathe to sacrifice.

As I said previously, Seeds of Calamity will be a "softer" sci-fi book, with less procedural detail and hard science. Already at the end of writing chapter 1, I have encountered several things that I've told myself I'm better off ignoring. I'm developing a habit of merely noting certain facets of the setting, giving the characters' actions more emphasis. It has the potential to be better than Tendrils. We'll see.

Let me know what you think in the comment section below! I'll reply to you as soon as I can. I invite you to read the first 3 chapters of Tendrils to the Moon for free, and see if the last 9 chapters are worth your time. The paperback version is on sale at Amazon for $8.99. The ebook is only 99 cents.