Tag Archives: None Call Me Mother

Rob’s Update: A Pleasant Little Peace

Week 30 of 2021

Greetings all

I’m sitting in my booth on a beautiful day at Armistice. Indeed, the weather has been exceedingly pleasant. Truly beautiful weather.

Right now, I have three very talented musicians playing medieval songs across the courtyard on viol (I think), recorder, and hurdy-gurdy. The breeze is just enough to give the air a nice feel. And all around me are the wonderful sounds of a medieval marketplace enjoying itself.

First, this week, is a poll from Chris Kennedy himself. He’d like to know what readers want. You find the poll here: https://joesolari.typeform.com/to/joz29tie. This will help us get you what you want. Better yet, if you fill it out, you’ll be  able to enter a drawing to win one of three $100 gift cards at the store of your choice or $100 cash sent to your PayPal or Venmo.

Most of what I’m doing when customers aren’t here are reading through the submissions for Talons & Talismans. I can confirm now that there will actually be two anthologies because I got so much cool stuff. One will come out in October and the other in November. I’ll announce the full lineups a week from today.

I submitted a story to Three Ravens Press on Monday for an anthology. I got to redshirt a good friend in there, as well as having fun with zombie tropes, something I’ve never done before.

My current short story is my story in Talons & Talismans. It’s about Rabah and Jaime Muniotz, two characters earlier in Shijuren’s history, whose actions shape some of the foundation of what I did with Ausartxango Belatz in Brief Is My Flame and None Call Me Mother.

In the next couple of days, I’m going to start a new novel that will be entitled The Door into Winter. Sometimes, the perfect title comes to you that not only fits your plans but seems like the perfect mold to write a story around. This one will start a new series in Shijuren following Irina, Ausartxango, and Geirr after None Call Me Mother.

I do have some disappointing news to report. Due to circumstances outside anyone’s control, I was forced to cancel my appearance at DragonCon. I want to thank all the volunteers, especially Cisca and Regina, for all their hard work. Also, we will still have a major announcement that weekend, however, so stay tuned here.

Been an eventful week, but for now, I’d better get back to selling.

What I’m Listening To

Hurdy-gurdy and recorders in the courtyard accompanied by the occasional rasp of a bowyer shaving bow staves. Quite ideal, I think.

Quote of the Week

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Mobile Bay. It is entirely likely that means today’s quote is apocryphal. However, like many such quotes, it’s too fun not to believe it happened.

“Damn the torpedoes!”
― Admiral David Farragut

New Mythology Works in Progress
Current open anthology calls:

I’m currently working on Talons & Talismans. Starting in September, I’ll be editing the next Milesian Accords novel from Jon R. Osborne. Really looking for that.

I am so excited for what’s coming, and I can’t wait to really give you a full schedule.

Rob’s Works in Progress

  • MON (3,211)
  • Rick Blaine (8,845)
  • CB (8,418)
  • CSC (1,283)

Upcoming Events

  • FactoryCon, 22-24 October, Coinjock, NC
    Details in the CKP – Factory Floor on Facebook.
  • 20BooksTo50K, 8-12 November, Las Vegas, NV
    http://20booksvegas.com/

New Releases

More 4HU awesomeness! This week it’s Robert E. Hampson and Sandra L. Medlock’s And Break it Not, where they continue their thread on the Wrogul. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09BBZY6GS.

There’s also another Buck Book, this one is Lloyd Behm’s Shadow Lands, Book 1 of his Shadow Lands series. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KX8GHYX.

.Today’s Weight: Updated in a week

Updated Word Count: Updated in a week

Shijuren Wiki: Updated in a week

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Author of the Shijuren-series of novels

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org

Rob’s Ramblings: 2020 Review

Now that 2020 is in the mirror, it’s time for me to review my output for the year and give myself a grade.

I only published one novel, None Call Me Mother. It was an important novel and a big challenge as the third of a trilogy. I learned a ton of things writing that series and I’ll never do that the same way again.

I published another Foresters story. Actually, I published another Rick Blaine story. I think, long-term, that’s where my 4HU future really lies. I got 30k into The Ravening of Wolves and it will be as straightforward a novel as I’ve ever written. At this point, it’s about arming up too damn quickly to fight a desperate fight. The physics of the 4HU means that Blaine has to be separate.

There was another story in the We Dare series. It was a prequel to “The Chaos of Well-Seeming Forms.” I like where that universe is going and I might very well do something with it down the road. Hence, I’m calling those the “On Opportunity’s Trail” universe. There’s stuff there, once I get a chance to write in it.

I had the great honor of being the guest for the Scribblers Corner anthology Dragons and Dribbles. My first time as a “guest star.” Thanks to William Joseph Roberts for the opportunity.

I wrote several fantasy short stories in 2020. I wrote one in late 2019, “What’s in a Name,” that came out in When Valor Must Hold. I wrote another Edward-ish story for Songs of Valor. My story in Dragons and Dribbles was another Shijuren story. I also dabbled in something that’s specifically Conan-esque.

While much of the fantasy stuff I wrote will only come out in 2021, I was pleased to really start pushing more short fantasy. I’ll be doing more of that in Shijuren to fill in some of the blanks.

I did my second Nick Patara, PI story. That world is really coming into view, and I actually got about 1k written in next year’s story.

Overall, I published about 200k worth of fiction. This is lower than I want, as it only included 1 novel and 5 short stories. There were also three introductions/prefaces. I also have a couple short stories that are in upcoming anthologies. I also had about 70k on my blog, so all told I counted 268,072 words.

This isn’t enough. I’ll give myself a C here. Had I written another novel, I’d give myself an A. Missed it by 70k.

However, I will adjust my overall grade up a bit when I consider what else I’ve done. The way the schedule worked, I did most of the work for both When Valor Must Hold and Songs of Valor in the 2020 calendar year.

So, while I only wrote about 20k words in those two total, they were two full-sized projects that I’m not counting in the above 200k. I’m not quite sure how to count editing work in my word count, so that’s something I’ll have to figure out.

I also had to rebuild the wiki for Shijuren in 2020. That ended up over 100k words of worldbuilding, record-keeping, and foundational work. This made it much easier to write my story for Songs of Valor, and is really pushing another Edward story.

Also, re-doing the wiki made it much easier for me to re-edit I Am a Wondrous Thing and Brief is My Flame. That took time too. I’m in the midst of re-editing the Edward books, and by the end of January, I expect them to be fresher and faster.

I did start learning how on-line publicity works. I’m still not doing it well, but making progress. It’s not something I’ve done a ton of, and I think I’m missing some opportunities there.

Actually, now that I think of it, I did quite a bit of research during the year to turn some instinctive things into known things that I can consciously call on instead of relying upon their appearance. I’m definitely getting better.

Overall, that extra work brings my grade up to a B-.  I didn’t do awful, but I’m sure I could have done more. I’ll do another post next week about my goals and plans for 2021. Next year, I’ll try and do better.

Rob’s Update: Headlong Into Mystery

Week 50 of 2020

Greetings all

I hope your holiday season is going well. We’re not doing much this year, which is a bit of a holiday in its own right. We love decorating and that sort of thing, but I for one am going to appreciate not having to carry all the decorations back to their spot upstairs in January.

And that has meant more time to work on things.

Like releasing last year’s freebie for the mailing list on Amazon. Silent Knight, with new artwork from Cedar Sanderson, is now available for those who aren’t on the list on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QYWB7C9.

If you read it and liked it, please leave a review. Those always help, no matter the book.

Also, those of you on the mailing list will get Under a Midnight Clear on Christmas Day. I’ll send it out in .mobi, .epub, and .pdf formats. In this one, Alley, Nick’s intel guy, is trying to help a relation of someone he once fought alongside. Nick knows there a case there, but he’s struggling to figure out just what he can do and for whom.

I’ve been cleaning up a number of other projects as well. I arranged None Call Me Mother in a more streamlined fashioned than my previous books. I may have mentioned how I updated the electronic versions of I Am a Wondrous Thing and Brief Is My Flame prior to None Call Me Mother’s release. I just finished updating all the paperback setups as well, a process that involves a lot of futzing with Amazon.

I have started another edit in my copious spare time of A Lake Most Deep, with the intent to provide fresh versions of all the Edward books in early 2021. This includes fixing all the links in the e-versions. The wiki is now mostly current, though I keep finding things I should have put in from earlier books and finding fun world-building ideas. It was always meant as a work in progress anyway and it’s serving its purpose as a font of ideas for the next Edward novel.

My next release will probably be the second in the Libri Valoris series of fantasy anthologies. Songs of Valor is basically ready to go, once I write the preface. It’ll come out in mid-March.

I’m also working on The Ravening of Sorrows. I’m at about 28k and if that number seems low, it’s because I realized what I have are two separate stories, one centered around the Foresters and Stalkers, and one centered around Rick Blaine. Rick’s storyline simply takes too long because it requires a goodly number of Stargate trips, which in the 4HU are 170 hours gate to gate plus the time to get from gate to planetary orbit. The Foresters are going to be in battle within three months of the events on Maquon.

What it really means is that you’re going to get two novels! When I finish them, of course. Updates on timing on those when I know more.

I’m going to leave you with a teaser. There are a number of things coming together in January that will be fun to announce.

And now, have a great week and a happy holiday season.

What I’m Listening To

Cygnus X-1 by Rush. I’ve been listening to Rush almost exclusively of late and probably will for a couple more weeks. I’ve set it to not shuffle, by the way, and I’m having fun listening to the albums in album order.

Quote of the Week

If you ever wondered, this is why my cars are always named Rocinante.

“I set a course just east of Lyra
And northwest of Pegasus
Flew into the light of Deneb
Sailed across the Milky Way

On my ship, the Rocinante
Wheeling through the galaxies,
Headed for the heart of Cygnus
Headlong into mystery”
– Rush, Cygnus X-1

News and Works in Progress

  • The Ravening of Wolves (27,982)
  • Rick Blaine (8,845)
  • CB (8,418)
  • Cynewulf (8,642)
  • Gato (2,312)

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

  • Not much this week except a bit of playing around on the wiki.

Upcoming Events

New Releases

This week’s spotlight is on Barbara V. Evers, who is showing us all how to do a trilogy right. The first book in her trilogy,

, comes out today. I believe all three of the books are in the can and they’ll come out monthly. Not stupid slow, like the way I did it. Anyway, you can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QRJTHHC.

Today’s Weight: 351.2

Updated Word Count: 262,221

Shijuren Wiki: 723 entries

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Currently Available Works
Shijuren

Nick Patara, PI

  • Silent Knight (Nick Patara, PI, Book 1)
  • Under a Midnight Clear (Nick Patara, PI, Book 2) (Forthcoming)
Four Horsemen Universe
The Phases of Mars
Short Stories

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org

Rob’s Update: I’m Doing This

Week 49 of 2020

Greetings all

It was a bit of a down week, though some of the reason why it feels down is that I pounded away at a bunch of details that need to get done, but which aren’t necessarily the big stuff like new words.

I got my released version of Silent Knight ready to go. Under a Midnight Clear is almost done *and* I started next year’s. Also, new artwork in this series from Cedar Sanderson.

I’ve got some stuff working on improving the Edward novels with the anticipation of another Edward book coming soon. Finishing None Call Me Mother has really opened my mind to some great plans in Shijuren.

Speaking of plans, the Shijuren wiki is now virtually rebuilt. I have ten or so entries to add that have been mentioned in the books, and they’re all minor. These will get added next week and then I’ll be laying groundwork for some future series. I’d like to have a bunch of the worldbuilding already done before I start the next series.

I think 2021 will be an amazing year for Shijuren and it will catapult into something special. I’m really excited here.

Songs of Valor, the FantaSci anthology, is *almost* done. Just waiting on a few things.

Finally, I turned my focus back to The Ravening of Wolves, the sequel to The Feeding of Sorrows.

When you lay all that out, a *down* week for me right now is still pretty darn productive. It was just a bit scattershot and I certainly took more time off this past week than I have in the previous few months. Not a bad week at all.

What I’m Listening To

NFL pregame shows. It’s a Sunday morning after all. Sorry I’m a little late from last week, mostly because I got distracted the past couple of days. Just fort that I’m giving you a quote from one of the greats of NFL history.

Quote of the Week

I think a George Halas quote is especially apt right now. I’m finally in the career I should have been in all along, though it took me to 2015 to realize that. I certainly would rather not be doing anything else.

“Nothing is work unless you’d rather be doing something else.”
– George Halas

News and Works in Progress

  • The Ravening of Wolves (33,182)
  • CB (8,418)
  • UAMC (4,785)
  • Gato (2,312)

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

  • A bunch more wiki additions. Starting next week, there’ll be new worldbuilding content that might give hints at future plans.

Upcoming Events

New Releases

This week’s spotlight is on Kevin Ikenberry, who is an incredibly smart guy. He’s the driving force behind the 4HU’s Peacemakers, which has become a great thing in its own right. Dereliction of Duty is in a different series, the Imprint War. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Q44Q6SZ.

Today’s Weight: 352.0

Updated Word Count: 261,189

Shijuren Wiki: 723 entries

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Currently Available Works
Shijuren
Four Horsemen Universe
The Phases of Mars
Short Stories

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org

Rob’s Update: To Such A Deep Delight

Week 48 of 2020

Greetings all

Really busy week going through short stories for Songs of Valor, the FantaSci anthology.

The five winners were:
Benjamin Tyler Smith
Casey Moores
Melissa Olthoff
Jamie Ibson
James Chandler

But they weren’t the only good stories. We got 37 all told and it was truly a deep delight to go through all of them.

This is going to be a great anthology. The five winners will be joined by David Weber, Glen Cook, Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, Jon Osborne, and more.

It’s also the first full week since None Call Me Mother came out. Wow, thanks to all of you who bought it. If you haven’t already, it’s here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NYDC6ZL.

And if you want to start the series from the beginning, I Am a Wondrous Thing is here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HHKZJVA.

Alright, time to get back to editing. Have a great week everyone.

What I’m Listening To

Rush’s Xanadu. Such a great song. It was the song that really got me into the depth of Rush because I already loved the poem.

Quote of the Week

Might as well do a quote from Xanadu, by Coleridge. Let’s do one of the deeper portions. I love Coleridge’s sense of rhythm and word choice.

“A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me”
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Xanadu

News and Works in Progress

  • The Ravening of Wolves (32,068)
  • UAMC (4,785)
  • MO (9,971)
  • CB (8,418)
  • Gato (2,312)

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

Upcoming Events

New Releases

This week’s spotlight is on Charles Gannon and a collection of rogues, who released Murphy’s Lawless, an anthology of stories in his Terran Republic universe. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PG4N2FS.

Today’s Weight: 354.0

Updated Word Count: 261,189

Shijuren Wiki: 678 entries

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Currently Available Works
Shijuren
Four Horsemen Universe
The Phases of Mars
Short Stories

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org

Rob’s Ramblings: Only *This* Story

This week I’ve been pleased to receive a whole slew of short stories for the FantaSci anthology. All told, we received 37 entrants, which seems like a good number to me. Chris and I are still discussing the ones we’re going to choose, so I’m not going to talk about results just yet.

However, since it’s fresh on my mind, I thought I’d go over some of the things I saw in this process. At this point, I’ve read a bunch of short stories over the years, written a dozen or so, and am in the process of editing my second anthology. There are many out there with more experience than I,  but this contest really helped coalesce my thoughts on short stories to something more concrete, so I’m going to post on this as much for me to remember as to help you all.

Let me lay down one overarching principle: “Only *this* story matters.” There’s your TL:DR of this post. Only this story matters and anything that’s extraneous drags it down.

First, let’s talk about exposition. The vast majority of stories that got put straight to the bottom of our list explained too much. There’s little that’ll bring a story to a screeching halt like a sizable infodump near the start.

Yes, readers need to know stuff. They’ll get frustrated when something isn’t explained. However, you want to only explain what you have to explain for *this* story, even if you have plans for that story being a part of a larger setting.

If you plan to compile a collection of connected short stories into a novel, you can come back and add exposition later if needed. But that’s part of that process, not this story.

Readers don’t always need to know technical details or the physics/metaphysics underlying a universe. They need to know only if the plot twist turns on it. Most of Asimov’s robot stories turn on the Three Laws, so the reader has to know them. But details how robots work? Not as much.

It’s really easy to throw in details the author thinks the reader needs to know. It’s rare, especially without more experience, for an author to limit that exposition to actually what is needed for *this* story. Believe me, I’m as guilty of this as anyone, and it’s a major part of my editing process to cut that sort of thing out of my own stuff.

For Songs of Valor, authors had 7-10,000 words to strike with. And I mean strike! Short stories work best with action, in my mind, not explanations of this and that. That especially includes a bunch of stuff about what the character is thinking. Show, don’t tell, the character as much as possible.

Now I don’t mind a character parsing through tactical choices a bit. “I did this to learn this and then did that to get this reaction.” This is, I think, especially useful in first person noir style stuff.

But even that’s a balance. For None Call Me Mother, a novel which needed more tactical discussion than a short story, my editor told me I’d gone overboard and I cut back on them dramatically to get a faster, sharper story. Editors are nice like that and the 148k original draft that seemed bloated ended up as a 124k sleek creature I’m pretty pleased with.

Tell us what we need to know and nothing else. And whenever possible, weave it into conversations and side notes in the story and avoid a major infodump.

But that brings up an obvious question, how do you know what the reader needs to know?

For me, short stories have a soul. This is true of all stories, long or short, but I think it’s more important with shorter stories because you have to focus on that soul and nothing else. With novels, you want to have some misdirection, extra plants, and some additional frippery. There’s simply not enough time for much of that in shorts.

The problem is that “soul” is such an amorphous term. I’m a pantser, especially with short stories. It is extremely rare that I know the soul of the story when I start it. It’s happened once, with my story “Far Better to Dare” from Those in Peril, but that’s it.

Most of the time I write at least 4-6,000 words before I realize what the soul of the story really is. Then I realize that much, if not most, of what I’ve written so far is not actually relevant to the soul of *this* story. Maybe I had to write it out to know the character well enough, or the events underlying the story, or whatever, but all that stuff is just background and I have to cut some, if not nearly all, of what I’ve written.

This is hard. You have to be ruthless with your own writing and take extra stuff out. Don’t delete it, of course, you may use it later elsewhere, but not here.

Of the stories we received that I thought had potential but weren’t in our top 4 and thus a part of the anthology, I would say nearly all of them suffered from too much exposition that didn’t matter to that story’s soul. In some cases, this exposition was the kernel of the story, and hence the author thought it had to be in the story. However, that’s not always the case, and took away space for action without adding as much as the author realized. That chunk mattered, because it drove the character, but the reader didn’t need to see all of it, just hints of it.

Let me give you an example from my story from this anthology. Its POV character is Katarina, the chaotic evil crime boss from Achrida who Edward has to deal with far too often. I initially started with a thread of her comparing people around her to those she’s murdered in the past. Number twelve, number two, number 47, etc. It’s a fun thread for this character and I had to have it in mind as I was writing from Katarina’s point of view as the most unlikely/reluctant hero I could think of, but those words were wasted in this story.

Don’t worry, I have all those murders saved and listed.

But what’s the soul of the story? That’s hard to determine and it could be really far afield from where you started.

When I started writing “Here Must We Hold,” my story about the Battle of Maldon in Trouble in the Wind, I wanted to write a version where Byrhtnoth’s decisions weren’t because of “ofermod,” or hubris, but rather from smart strategic thinking that gave up a tactical advantage. That’s there, of course, but in the end, it became about something else, a pure redemption arc I won’t spoil by describing here. That forced me to change the entire structure of the story, remove some particulars, and add others.

My story in We Dare, “The Chaos of Well-Seeming Forms,” is a version of the Finnsburh Episode & Fragment, or Romeo & Juliet if you prefer, set on Mars. That was all, but in the end, it became more of a story about the hero in the Wanderer or the Seafarer, two of my favorite Old English poems. That, too, forced a series of changes, cuts, and tweaks. I didn’t realize that until I reached the absolute end of the story and needed the extra gut punch.

I could describe the journey of each story I’ve written, but I think you get the point. Be open to finding a soul of the story after you’ve written it, then shaping the story around it.

Whatever I’m writing, I constantly think about Raghunath Rao. He’s a character from the Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake. He is fond of saying, “Only the soul matters in the end.” Not a bad thing to remember when writing short stories.

Returning to “The Chaos of Well-Seeming Forms,” I mentioned I thought it needed an extra gut punch and that’s because I think short stories need a twist. Something at the end that forces the reader to think and want more. I get this philosophy from one writer in particular, my favorite writer of short stories ever, Randall Garrett.

He was about as flawed a man as he could be, which is why many of you have never heard of him. He wrote only when he needed drinking money. However, he was so good he could go to John Campbell and ask for an advance on a story and get it! What a crazy thing, especially in the era of the pulp magazines of the 50s and 60s.

If you ever see a copy of The Best of Randall Garrett paperback in a used book store, get it. Even if you already have a copy so you can gift it to someone. There’s an e-book on Amazon with the same title, but it’s not the same as the paperback, though the two are linked. Here’s the link for the paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Randall-Garrett-1982-01-01/dp/B01K3JZWX2. Again, the e-book version is not the same.

That paperback has the single best collection of SF/F short stories I’ve ever found. Every story in here is absolutely amazing and powerful. And they all have a twist at the end, some which have never stopped resonating with me since the first time I read this collection in the early 80s. I would never suggest anyone emulate Garrett’s life, but his skills as a writer of short stories are hard to match.

So I try to have all my stories have some sort of twist at the end. It could be just a subtle thing like the last word in “Far Better to Dare.” It could be big like the gut punch at the end of “The Chaos of Well-Seeming Forms.” The twist in “What’s in a Name” is the word “Deor,” which is an odd word in Old English, but which added a neat addition to the redemption of Edward, provided the title, and shaped the soul slightly.

Doesn’t really matter what the twist is, nor is it necessarily a requirement. However, I think we can all understand that a story that hits you at the end with something extra is likely to be more memorable than without. In an anthology where you’re surrounded by great stories, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. And if you’re in a muddle of 37 stories for a competition, it’s even more important.

Finally, I’m going to touch on something that’s important, but which *can* be overcome, and that’s the use of language.

This is a fantasy anthology. We got a variety of definitions of fantasy, which was great, but of course some of it was medieval fantasy. There were a few of these submissions that suffered because the language was too modern for the setting. Imagine, if you will, Gandalf saying, “Well, hindsight is 20/20.” Wait. What? That totally throws me out of the story.  So does “OK.”

Likewise, if you’re writing an urban fantasy or SF and the characters speak in a Shakespearean style, the readers are going to wonder what the heck is going on. It might work, like David Weber’s Jiltanith character from his Mutineer’s Moon series, but it has to be explained.

It may seem cool, but that exposition might take the place of action later on or confusing the soul of the story. In other words, getting in the way of the story’s power.

Now, sure, an editor can go through and edit all of the modernisms out of a medieval fantasy story, or whatever other oddnesses might be there, but in a contest, it’s a factor from the editor’s point of view. It means your story has to be clearly one of the winners. In a tie or close race between two stories, it will matter more. It’s quite literally part of the discussion Chris and I are having right now.

So to sum up, here you go.

  1. Only *this* story matters right now.
  2. Exposition only as needed for *this* story.
  3. Only the soul of *this* story really matters, in the end.
  4. Find a twist to give *this* story extra punch if you can.
  5. Use only the language that makes *this* story work.

Yeah, sure, these targets are amorphous and difficult to hit. I’m also not perfect at hitting them. However, I know that when I have these principles in mind, I write better stories. I also know that those stories submitted for this anthology that matched these principles got noticed more.

Again, you’ll find others out there with more experience than me, and also more success. You should absolutely pay attention to them. Also, there’s one true way of writing, and it’s whatever works for *you.* Still, I would say you wouldn’t go wrong at least considering these five things as you write short stories.

 

Rob’s Update: Stories, Magic, and Books, Oh My!

Week 47 of 2020

Greetings all

What a great week here, what with Thanksgiving and the release of None Call Me Mother. Thanks to all of you who’ve supported me along the way. I really appreciate it.

It’s great to have it finally finished, in part because it’s like finishing three books at once. Here’s the whole series, by the way:

I Am a Wondrous Thing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HHKZJVA
Brief Is My Flame: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F1BQPNC
None Call Me Mother: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NYDC6ZL

As I’ve said before, I’m really pleased with how this story turned out. I’ve re-read them all in the past week and they still entertain me and make me care about the characters.

This week I’ve been going through some of my writing notes, talking about some of my processes. I do this with every novel released, because each one teaches me something new or, at the very least, hammers in a point more than before. I touched on this in this blog post: https://robhowell.org/blog/?p=2163.

This seemed to spark some interest, so I then did a sketch of some of my thoughts behind a few characters, Irina Ivanovna, Eleonore Drechsler, and Etain Muirghein. You can find this post here: https://robhowell.org/blog/?p=2166.

Then finally, at least for this week, I will talk about the evolution of Shijuren’s magic system tomorrow on both my blog and on Mad Genius Club.

Honestly, I should get back into the habit of doing a Monday Ramblings post. I have lots of thoughts, and often these posts help me think through them all.

Also this week, I basically finished two short stories. Both just need their print and read editing pass. Both turned out well, I think. You on my email list will get to see one for free on Christmas Day. The other will come out in the anthology.

I’ve also started cleaning up the Edward books to match my new improved arrangement. That’ll take whatever time it takes. I’ve found of late I can use the verbal editing pass as a good way to relax before going to bed, oddly enough. I read through a few chapters and my brain is done for a bit.

*And* on top of all of that, I keep adding to the wiki. This has become a relaxing process as I start playing with world-building ideas. I have more series to write in the world, and I’m about to do some more Edward stories, so it’s really giving me ideas.

What I’m Listening To

Lost in Germany by King’s X. I can remember the exact moment I first listened to King’s X. A buddy had suggested it and I picked up their CD Gretchen Goes to Nebraska. This is a fantastic album, and the first song, Out of the Silent Planet, just blew me away. If I have to pick a Best Rock Band Ever (Non-Rush Category), they’re in the running.

Quote of the Week

Here’s a taste from Upon a Midnight Clear, the free story I’ll be sending out to those on my mailing list. If you want to get it for free, just go to www.robhowell.org and fill out the form on the left.

An embarrassed elf stood at my door amid swirling snow.

This wasn’t as uncommon a thing for me as it was for many people, but it’s never a good thing for your intel guy to look embarrassed.

Upon a Midnight Clear

News and Works in Progress

  • The Ravening of Wolves (32,068)
  • UAMC (4,785)
  • MO (9,971)
  • CB (8,418)
  • Gato (2,312)

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

Upcoming Events

New Releases

This week’s spotlight is on Benjamin Tyler Smith, who just released Blue Salvation, the 13th in Christopher Woods’ Fallen World universe. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P49L1D3.

Today’s Weight: 355.0 (A bit of a step back, but Thanksgiving will do that)

Updated Word Count: 250,745

Shijuren Wiki: 543 entries

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Currently Available Works
Shijuren
Four Horsemen Universe
The Phases of Mars
Short Stories

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org

Rob’s Ramblings: Character Origins

Todd Searls mentioned that he liked seeing under the hood yesterday, and when I thought about his comment, I realized I love that from my favorite creators too.

One of my basic principles is to be the author I want be a fan of. Write the stuff I want to read and interact the way I want to be interacted with. So I’ll do some more of these posts, especially now while None Call Me Mother is new and fresh in my mind. In this one I’ll discuss some of the things I thought of while designing a few characters.

Irina Ivanovna

Irina Ivanovna is probably the most important character I’ve ever designed, not simply because she is the key to this story, but also because she shaped the entirety of Periaslavl and hence, much of the entire world.

I love Star Wars, but as I’ve gotten older, the Luke Skywalker character gets really boring. It’s a common fantasy trope, of course, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. How could I create a character than had all that “destiny” but knew a ton, yet didn’t know anything? That’s a thought exercise, let me tell you.

What if the character’s been sheltered? What if their limitation is that they’ve been focused on something else, not living in the world. And that led to the idea of the velikomat, or Great Mother, of Periaslavl. I won’t get into some of the reasons behind why Periaslavl made sense for this because it’d be a spoiler, but I had here a vehicle to make sure that the Great Mothers lived for a looooong time.

During the events in None Call Me Mother, Irina is 140 years old but her body is still that of a teenager. M-a-a-a-gic. If it’s a fantasy world, I should darn well use it.

Making her a ruler with all this experience and power meant she knew all sorts of top-end things. How much food an oblast would need to make it through the winter. How many troops Periaslavl could support. What was the Empire going to do? Or Svellheim. And so on.

Yet, of course, she’s never really been a person. She was chosen at 16 to be the Great Daughter, and for 124 years her life has been nothing but ruling Periaslavl. It’s a great set of experiences for a character, but it’s also a great set of non-experiences. I had a ton of fun playing with those things she never experienced or, more importantly for one kinetic reason, didn’t remember.

So there’s my callow character of “destiny.” I really have a problem doing the easy thing, don’t I?

One last note about Irina. My mom’s mom’s name was Irene. Yeah, I’m shallow, but I loved making that connection as the “Great Mother.” You should all expect this, by the way, because my mom’s dad’s name is Edward.

Eleonore Drechsler

The second character I’m going to look at is Eleonore Drechsler. I’ll start with her name. I use a random generator on Behind the Names. It’s a fantastic site, one of the most useful on the internet. I had to laugh at this name when it came up, because one of my favorite basketball players ever is Clyde Drexler. Ha! I slay myself.

Anyway, in many ways she draws from the same sort of fallen paladin ideas I often love. In some ways, she’s a hard-edged version of Edward. Sometimes it’s fun to write a good guy doing bad things. Really bad things.

Eleonore had to be a great warrior. More important, a skilled leader. I needed to inject a bit of skill into the cesspool that is the Kreisens anyway, and Demmenkreisen, as one of the largest and most powerful Kreisens was a good place for it. That it was in the exact right place (thank you, Adam, which I might touch on in a different post), was a bonus.

Part of the reason that it was important to me that she was a leader is that I needed that to be able to break her down. She has to take a path, not an easy path, but the one that seems easiest for someone who’s enraged. I think most people get enraged not on their own behalf, but on behalf of those close to them.

Her character arc, then, is to screw up but then spend the rest of the series overcoming her mistake. In many ways, this is my favorite arc because it’s something we all do. Her part of the epic battle is perhaps the most subtle, as she cannot win her fight. She can, however, slow the magic that’s attacking her and thereby give the others a chance to win. I probably make this too subtle in the book, because as a set of actions it’s not terribly active, but I, at least, know what battle she faced, and it’s one that I rather enjoyed.

Etain Muirghein

Many of you know the story behind a bunch of characters that appeared in Brief Is My Flame. These were a bunch of redshirts as part of a fundraiser for a great guy who had some health issues.

Obviously, I won’t go into these characters’ origins, because if you know the person redshirted, you’ll catch the references and if you don’t, you won’t care. However, I did want to touch on a few ways these redshirts helped shape Shijuren and the story.

Etain Muirghein was a character I mentioned briefly in I Am a Wondrous Thing. As the Thalassocrat of the Western Isles, she had a part to play in the political maneuvering between realms. However, I didn’t say anything else about her at the time.

Then I was asked to redshirt someone I really respect who helped shape Calontir. Etain suddenly became a great vehicle for that, and so I put in all of her I could. Feisty, tough, awesome. I even added her dog, sort of. It’s named Madra Te in the books, which is a great pun for those who know her.

Anyway, that meant I had to put Etain into some of the action. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d do anything really involving the Western Isles or anything on that end of the Kreisens, but in the end it became a fantastic vector to get to the end.

Plus, I got to write fantasy ship battles using another redshirt, and have both die gloriously. Man, that worked out well, and it’s all because I had to fit this redshirt somewhere and Etain was the absolute right place.

So there you go. A bit of a sketch behind three of the most important characters in the series. There was some serendipity involved in these characters, but at least I was smart enough to recognize it when it hit me upside the head. Serendipity’s got a punch, let me tell you.

Rob’s Ramblings: Climbing the Mountain

Greetings all

None Call Me Mother comes out tomorrow!

I keep talking about how much I’m excited about this release, and it’s all true. I have scaled this mountain.

There were times I doubted I’d make it. However, it’s here, and it’s good. One of the reasons I think many people become authors is that they want to write the stories they want to read. I have re-read all of this series in the past week and it’s my kind of story.

Anyway, I thought I’d take a moment and talk about some of the things I discovered while writing this series. This series, more than anything else I’ve written, changed my processes.

First and foremost, I screwed up at the start of all this. I’m a pantser, meaning I write by the seat of my pants.

For the Edward stories, this works great. However, part of that’s because everything in those stories comes from the single window of the first person POV. The author can have a more limited view because both the character and the reader have that same limited view. We all expect certain things to happen off screen.

The Kreisens has a completely different structure. Yes, I want the character and the reader to have limited views, but for those limited views to mesh at the end required me to know everything behind those views.

I didn’t do this well.

I came close. I didn’t have to retcon anything important. I don’t see any huge plot holes, and neither did my editor. However, I missed opportunities for fun plants and hints in I Am a Wondrous Thing that I really regret. I also have great plot ideas that in the end I couldn’t use because to do so would have required major retconning I wasn’t willing to do.

So the first thing I will change the next time I write a multi-book story arc will be to either plot significantly (unlikely), or write all of it at once and release the trilogy (or whatever) in sequence with little need for change. A series is one kind of animal. A trilogy is another.

Second, my production process was flawed. Some of this was experience. I’ve gotten better at writing blurbs, for example. It’s its own craft and one I continue to practice.

However, I’ve never been pleased with myself in my original release of I Am a Wondrous Thing. A Lake Most Deep suffers from a number of issues, but that doesn’t bother me as much because it was my first book, and first books *always* have issues. Live, learn, get better.

But I Am a Wondrous Thing was book three and I just simply didn’t do a great job producing it. Of all my books, it had the most typos/mistakes. I would have made a much more active cover. It had the most extraneous words. The blurb wasn’t great.

It’s especially frustrating now because I see these things so clearly and at the same time I see a great story.

The good news about being an independent writer is I can fix some of these things relatively easily. Live, learn, get better, after all. I Am a Wondrous Thing made me do all three.

The biggest change was to add a verbal read-through editing pass. I now print off the entire book or short story and read it out loud (when the cats let me). While my editor does a great job, this pass lets me catch some things simply because I’m reading the page differently. Also, it helps me see words that aren’t necessary. Most importantly, I think, is it shows me when I’ve arranged a sentence badly, something I am wont to do. If I can’t read it out loud smoothly, then it needs to be rephrased or cut.

This one thing has dramatically improved the quality of my stuff, and I’ve done it with everything I’ve written ever since.

As part of the None Call Me Mother release, I wanted to make sure both I Am a Wondrous Thing and Brief Is My Flame matched.

So I did a verbal read-through editing pass on I Am a Wondrous Thing. It’s much stronger now, much sleeker. As I said, I didn’t retcon anything major, but I did add a few hints and plants that mesh better with the events in None Call Me Mother. In many cases, this was literally changing one word to another, even to the point of changing an “and” to a “but.”

Along the way, I also realized my method for novel organization had flaws. I like having a section where I can discuss the people who helped, things about the current book, and that sort of stuff. That’s why I wrote a Foreword in the first place. However, that gets in the way of the reader reaching the story. so I changed it to an Afterword.

All three novels now have the same internal structure on the electronic versions. There are some challenges to making that true for the print versions, but those will be completed by the end of the week, I think. All three will look and feel the same inside, except of course for the story itself.

Side note: This may or may not show up yet with existing readers by the way. There’s supposed to be an update feature with Amazon so you get the latest version. However, it’s not working on my copies, so I’ve sent them a message to ask what’s going on. Also, this obviously doesn’t change the physical copies. Keep those. They’ll be collector’s items someday.

In the past, I have put dates and locations on each chapter. I have also gotten feedback that this distracted the reader without really adding anything. Some of you will prefer having those details, and I will continue to make sure the time continuity works on my initial drafts, but they make the story ponderous at times.

A third thing getting in the way of readers were the wiki links.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the wiki is a great thing. For me, it’s a place to do my world-building, serves as my bible, and gives me a bunch of story ideas. For readers, it allows them a chance to really grok Shijuren. Again, my basic philosophy as a writer is to provide the content I want from those authors I love.

However, the links *in the prose* got in the way of some readers. Hence, I’ve done a compromise. The story itself has no links, but the appendices do.  It’s all in the wiki, and you can go directly to it from the appendices, but there’s no link distracting the reader in the middle of a sentence.

Readers are, after all, what’s important in all of this. All of these changes are based on comments made to me by you guys and I haven’t even touched on my changes to my prose. I continue to work toward streamlined, faster prose because again that’s easier to read, but I also strive to produce the books well. I’m getting there.

But I have scaled this particular peak. As of tomorrow, The Kreisens is a complete unit, freshly touched up, and fully annotated in a revamped and improved wiki. Best of all, I love it.

What a great thing to be able to say.

 

 

Rob’s Update: None Call Me Mother on Tuesday

Week 46 of 2020

Greetings all

None Call Me Mother will go live on Tuesday!

I’m really excited to complete this series. It’s been a long, educational, and stressful road, but it’s finally done. And it rocks.

There’ll be a number of posts this week about the release, along with a blog post on some of the changes in my production process.

As part of this, I am updating both I Am a Wondrous Thing and Brief is My Flame in order to match some of the new production values. If you have those, I’ll let you know to look for updates on your Kindle.

So it’s been a busy and really productive week around here.

I also started my yearly freebie story  for people on my mailing list, the second in the Nick Patara, PI stories. This one is entitled Upon a Midnight Clear.

By the way, the one I wrote for last year, Silent Knight, will be released on Amazon in December. So, if you’re not on my mailing list, you can still read this story, which I have to say is really fun.

Of course, if you  want it free, along with the new story on Christmas, just join my mailing list. You can subscribe on my website at: www.robhowell.org.

What I’m Listening To

A wretched hive of scum and villainy. Worse than the one you’re thinking of 😀

Quote of the Week

Robert Feldacker has written a number of fantastic songs. He graciously allowed me to quote one of my favorites in None Call Me Mother, because it fit perfectly with one tiny change. I suspect you’ll figure out the word I changed when you compare the title to the quote I used.

“Tall and mighty towers by the coast of the sea,
Raise their dark empty spires in forlorn misery.
Crumbling grain by grain to the cold ocean spray,
And cursing the Northmen as they wither away.”
– Robert Feldacker, Cursing the Normans

News and Works in Progress

  • The Ravening of Wolves (32,068)
  • ACP (10,077)
  • Upon a Midnight Clear (1,812)
  • CB (8,418)
  • Cynewulf (8,642)
  • Gato (2,312)

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

  • Lots more Wiki additions, now up to about 500 entries.

Upcoming Events

New Releases

This week’s spotlight is on William Joseph Roberts, who just released another entry in the Fallen World universe entitled Wildcat: Foreclosure of a Dream. You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NSYFCZK.

Today’s Weight: 352.6

Updated Word Count: 245,112

Shijuren Wiki: 496 entries

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Currently Available Works
Shijuren
Four Horsemen Universe
The Phases of Mars
Short Stories

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org