Traveller’s Tales

Spent a bit of time this weekend putting parts of the house into a semblance of, if not actually ‘order,’ then at least ‘less entropy.’  Boxes went to the loft, so now I can actually get to my exercise equipment again, though I didn’t really need to use it this weekend after moving all those bloody boxes up to the loft.  Funny how that worked.  Now, at some point I’ll actually have to open the boxes to see what’s in them and where they should be going, but in the meantime just having them out of the way is a big plus.

Found myself a new local karate school; they sound like they’re the kind of place I like (Okinawan derivant, triple-focus on kata, kumite and waza, tonfa is one of their weapons forms), so once I’m back in some kind of shape I’ll be visiting to see whether it’s a fit.

No writing done.  Bad me.  So much stress and involvement from work, the brain’s just empty. Blood, rock, stone, same thing.  I’m going to need to set up better ground rules for engaging the muse, because I’ve been blowing her off a lot lately.

And that’s why this post is about rearranging.  That time thing, there’s just not enough of it to screw around and do things on the fly anymore.  Time to set aside actual chunks To Do Things With.  Dunno how that’s going to net out yet, but it’s something I’m thinking about.

Meh.  I want a summer vacation.  June to September, remember what that was like?

Yeah.  Me too.

Perhaps only by me, because I’ve been looking for this damned thing for ages, but at long last, the character interview for the Warlord, Paldor Daln, is now available for reading.  I’m pleased and impressed that so much of the original interview made it into the final character, proving to me once and for all that the interview process is both useful and important to my writing.

But enough from me, go ahead and read it.  It’s probably the longest one yet, so get comfortable first.

Good things happening in my writing world.

Old: In a well-worn notebook I’d hidden in one of the Myriad Boxes I Have Not Unpacked From My Move, Way Back In February*, I discovered a seriously huge number of notes regarding worldbuilding and forward series thinking.  The best part of this isn’t the recovered notes, which alone will be lovely to re-assimilate (and will contribute copiously to the Codex Vocrotha in the weeks to come), but in fact a long-lost character interview with none other than my very favorite arch-nemesis, the Warlord, Paldor Daln.  Expect to see him as exposed and self-referential as you’ll ever see him, in a post very soon.

New: a scene rewrite, for The Grey Knight.  Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to be done with this one, and normally I won’t “optimize” a scene, but this just gives me so much more bang for the page space that it has to be done.

Also new: movement in the agent category.  Nothing definite at the moment but forward momentum is always positive; when I have actual news I’ll report it.

*I’m not actually averse to unpacking, it’s the Finding A Place For The Things Which You Have Just Unpacked process that’s tricksy.

Huge, catastrophic change tends to disrupt habits, whether they’re long-established, like finding a way to always slack at work, or whether they’re developing, like attempting to make a regular go at blogging.

As it happens, huge, catastrophic change has been going on at work for me.  Mainly good things — you’ll notice that my last blog entry had to do with intense dissatisfaction as regards the workplace, so in theory we’re going to stop making muffins soon and start supporting the business in meaningful ways.  I’ve learned so much in the last six months that the proper term to describe my progression is more “evolved” than”graduated,” and I’m not entirely sure I’m happy about all of it, but by and large I’m now being asked to help fix everything that’s broken, and on the whole this is a far better situation than smugly watching it devolve into chaos from my hidey-hole in the corner of the building.

There are writing things afoot, now, as I begin to adjust to both the new work environment and the new house, which I’ve written pathetically little about but love dearly, despite the unmeasurable multitude of Things That Must Be Done to the place.  I’ll mumble more about those writing things later, but for now suffice it to say that I’ve been taken by creative development fits twice now, both as regards the first book, and I’m pleased with the direction they’ve gone — pleased enough that I’m writing them in now.  I’m also seriously stinking tired of the lack of forward momentum, and something is going to happen, soon, to rectify that situation.  I don’t know what, yet, but I know what my options are, and I’m getting ready to exercise them.

It’s been one seriously strange year so far, but I think the fodder I’ve waded through in the first half is going to make for a very interesting second half.

By the way.  Art, if you’re out there, when the hell is the next game and why the hell haven’t you told me about it?

I’m not sure who the hell fired all the competent HR people I used to work with back in the day and hired smarmy buffoons in their place, but I want to find that person and turn him into a teambuilding exercise by placing him in front of a large bullseye and letting people throw things at him.

Apparently, we have somehow gone from the logical approach of ‘hey, people aren’t happy, let’s tie performance to pay so they’re motivated to excel’ to ‘hey, nobody’s happy, let’s make muffins!’ while I wasn’t looking. By which I don’t mean actual, literal muffins (though I’m sure, in some sad circumstances, this does actually happen), but figurative muffins, bizarre little activities or items intended to distract one from one’s actual work issues by creating and promoting a false sense of misdirected satisfaction via chotchkies, stupid games, and, occasionally, free booze. I don’t mind the free booze, but don’t for a second expect that it’s working as a distraction.

I’ll give you an example. The place I work just had a celebration of their re-branding. Never mind that they originally promised that everyone would have off to reflect on the brand and their business (a lovely idea that lasted an entire year before someone cut it off at the knees — naturally, because it had a chance of promoting actual good will towards the brand) and instead now we’re in for a day of business as usual. Never mind that nobody’s had a raise in as many years as I’ve worked here, and the word ‘bonus’ is used to describe hitting the urinal instead of extra money at the end of the year. Never mind all that: they gave us heavy metal cubes with clever sayings, attached to roach clips on springs. Three of them. Because suddenly management is terribly concerned about the quality of life of their employees, and motivational sayings on roach clips will surely do a better job of that than oh, I don’t know, letting people leave at a reasonable hour.

These cubes are muffins. Not as tasty or good-smelling, but with the same desired effect: they attempt to generate good-will with a minimum of financial outlay, while avoiding the core issues of employee dissatisfaction (and they wonder why places like despair.com make so much money). Sadly, their effect is similarly transient: even the most credulous consumer of these goods will find themselves over the experience in eight hours or thereabouts, and those of us who are more cynical bastards won’t even bother partaking.

Naturally, I fall into neither the group of poor credulous innocents nor into the cult of cynical bastards, but actually into an elite force of ultra-cynical subversionaries; not only do I not fall for this shit, but in fact I quite enjoy figuring out how to use these wretchedly conceived toys contrary to their intended use. Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I do carry a hope that someday, someone else may also realize how utterly full of horseshit this crap is, and wonder aloud, “Why are the people nominally in charge wasting money on crap like this when they could be giving people things they actually want, like, you know, raises, promotions, bonuses and days off.”

I know, I’m really hoping way too much, but that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Anyway, while I do have plans for these specific muffins, the point of this rant isn’t to share those plans, but to remind anyone who might be reading this that no: muffin-making as a HR policy is not, in fact, an HR policy. There are real ways to motivate people and retain talent, and they have nothing to do with muffins. And, if you find yourself eating a muffin today, for crying out loud make sure it’s a chocolate one.

Damn, now I’m hungry.

First: apparently Shadee and I were thinking along similar lines today; she left a comment on a prior post regarding where to find good post-consumer bond paper — apparently The Green Office has a lot of good stuff along these lines. My own investigations led to a specific bond paper brand, Aspen 100, which is sold at OfficeMax by the ream, that is both 100% post-consumer content (i.e. contains no newly dead trees, only previously dead trees) and supposedly looks decent. Seems this is a more intelligent approach to eco-friendly printing than those silly “Please think of the environment before printing this email” signatures that are going around right now. OfficeMax’s online checkout and shipping fees are silly, but I’ll stop by one in NYC tomorrow and pick up a ream to give it a go.

Second: After my little episode procuring an actual printout of the current manuscript for The Grey Lord, I’ve managed to stare at it a number of times, do some line edits as I leaf through the pages and frown a bit. As I reflected on my inability to focus on the task at hand, it occurred to me that I may need to take it back yet another step; there’s too much actual detail in the manuscript now, and I need to think in less detail, not more. With that reflection, I wondered if I couldn’t use one of the tools I use in my mundane work life, OpenOffice Draw, to help with my writing life. I won’t get into specifics just yet, but if it ends up working for me I’ll post the results.

Third: I have run out of fudgesicles.

So I decided to print the manuscript for TGL early today, so I could miss the rush and all the people trying to use the printers, right? I load up the document, hit print, go to the printer.

And do a double-take: it’s missing. Not the printout, the actual printer, replaced utterly by a shiny new printer where the old one should have been. Reasonably, my printout should be here, though, yes? Reasonably, yes, but in this version of the real world, no. No printout to be seen. I suddenly realize that they’ve changed out the printers like they were threatening to do for all those months, but they never set up my PC with the new local printer. I apparently printed to the old printer address, to which a nearby printer no longer answers.

No big deal, though, right? I go back to my desk, expecting to find the print manager showing me an error, that the old address is no longer valid and would I like to cancel please? Instead, the print manager has already closed, which means that the job has printed.

Somewhere.

Just not here.

Getting slightly desperate, I call the help desk and ask them to locate where printouts to the old printer address would go, and, in typically efficient, forward-thinking and informative fashion, they have absolutely no clue where the old address now goes to, because naturally their operation is so thorough and efficient that a problem of the sort I’m describing could never have happened without it somehow being my fault. After considerable muttering they set up a ticket for me to talk to network operations so I can try to track down the printer.

I wait, and I wait, and I wait some more, and while I’m waiting I get a call from an extension I don’t recognize. Hoping it’s the aforementioned network operations group, I pick up to discover that I’ve answered an irate woman from the 5th floor (I work on the 3rd), wondering if I’m the idiot that printed out a 110 page novel on her printer. Aware that this has suddenly become absurd, I (perhaps inappropriately, but hey I’m ad libbing here) correct her, saying that the document is actually a partial novel rather than a full novel. Belatedly realizing I’m probably pissing her off by playing semantics so early in the morning, I elaborate that yes, it was printed erroneously, and yes, I’m terribly sorry, and yes, I’ll say five Hail Mary’s and go to Confession after I remove the offending document from her printer.

So I march up to the 5th floor to retrieve the aforementioned ream of paper in my best hangdog fashion. She’s not there, but in the interim she has kindly binder-clipped the printout for me, so I feel even more like a stupid oaf as I pick up the parcel, and slink back to my desk as obscurely and quickly as possible.

Upon my return, I see that network operations has finally replied to my request via email: they have courteously sent me the entire network printer map for the 3rd floor, thus managing to provide encyclopedic information for a question I hadn’t asked, while simultaneously failing utterly to provide any information actually pertaining to the original problem (which, in any case, is now solved anyway). A comedy of errors from beginning to end; I can honestly see Palin and Cleese adding just a touch of their own personal styling to the tale and turning it into a saga that would rival their infamous Book Shop skit.

Only two positive results came of this bizarre little episode. One, I have my printout. Two, I now know how to print prank messages on everyone else’s printer on my floor.

I expect both will come in handy.

So yeah, I’m doing a lot of backstory work.  Part of my deal with myself is to do at least one entry in the Codex a day, so that way the damn thing starts taking on a bit more substance, but in honest reflection I have to wonder if I’m letting that get in the way of other writerly stuff, like, you know, the novel itself.

On the one hand, the Codex lets my rational brain take part in the creation process: it links histories, it defines technologies, it aggregates information about various bits and then spits them out in digestible chunks, which is all for the good, naturally.  I do tend to find that if I go all-out creative, doing solid writing and nothing else, I eventually sputter to a halt because part of my brain is being horribly neglected — so in that respect, the Codex is a great way to let the rational side involve itself in the creative process.

On the other hand, there’s a potentially significant logical problem that should be demanding my attention, and that’s the sneaking suspicion that the outline I’ve written for The Grey Lord is seriously flawed in parts, or at least underdeveloped.  Not in huge parts, but in significant enough parts that it probably warrants a going-over with scalpel and forceps.  And, this being the case, it’s quite possible that my current obsession with the Codex is a distraction from the elephant in the room.

I think what needs doing is for me to get an actual hard copy of the thing to review it in its current state.  I’ve been trying to review it on the PC, but screen by screen evaluation just doesn’t seem to be my bag; either I get distracted by the bits I’ve already written and like, or I skip through the problematic stuff with a little too much ease.  I need to see the thing on paper so I can scribble on it.  Apologies to the trees (I wonder if there’s a good recycled bond paper I can do this sort of thing on?), but this sounds like a good first step.

I’m going a little crazy with the Codex at the moment; apologies for the one-sided focus, but I’ve been having troubles with my laptop (again) and I want to make sure all of the ancient information I still have on there gets on the server before the damned drive defecates on the linens again. Though I know it’s not as cool as new chapters in the novel, it’s really getting me stoked; the logical brain loves the connections between events, and the creative mind loves probing the events themselves, so it’s all part of revving up the engine to get back up to speed.

Today, we have new entries on the Golden Reign of the Kâlindur, on the tree city of Highbranch, home of the Solindriel, and, lastly, an entry on the Vasriel themselves — the progenitor race of both Solindriel and Tenebriel — who ceased to exist as a race during their exile in the Adaric Archipelagos.

Starting to think I’m almost ready to get back into the book. Heave! Ho!

Okay, so it’s not exactly writing for the novel, per se, but it is important writing work that I’ve been putting off, and it’s all part of my master plan to get myself properly back into the swing of things. The Codex Vocrotha, you may or may not know, is my work-in-progress repository for backstory, historical information and bizarre trivia relating to my stories. Worldbuilding for me isn’t just helpful, it’s as utterly necessary as the stories I write, the characters who take part in them and the ridiculous levels of research I do to make sure real-life details don’t break the fiction due to my own negligence. An example: if I put in a magical suspension bridge, then I had damned well better know how suspension bridges are supposed to work in real life, at least in a general sense, so when I describe a bridge, a real-life engineer reading my book doesn’t say “Oh for crying out lout, that’d never work!’ but instead says, “Huh, that’s kinda neat, that material would have to have incredible tensile strength, but imagine what you could do with it!” Well, that sort of detail carries over into backstory with me — thus, the Codex.

Anyway, I know, ultimately, that I’m writing fiction, but internal consistency is incredibly important, and setting down the details for the histories, the characters that have come before, the special magics and all that other wild stuff is as important to me as telling the stories that use those details as their foundations. So in that spirit, from the brand-spanking new entries from the Codex, I present the Nightmare Imperium and the Maltharian Kingdom. Both of these feature in The Grey Knight, if historically (in the first case), so they are absolutely relevant to the current stories, but if you start following links I can’t promise you won’t end up somewhere utterly bizarre, thinking to yourself “Where the hell is THAT in the book?” Not only is it possible that I may not know, but there may not actually even be an answer, ever. Yeah, it’s like that.

(And yeah, it looks like a basic uncustomized wiki. Sorry ’bout that. I really don’t have time to customize it myself just now. Maybe soon.)