Tag: publishing

Publishing, Shifting Isles

Return to Tanas — Now available!

G.R. Lyons

Return to TanasAnd here we are again! Wow, six books out now. This is crazy. It’s funny to look back at my life and think that I never imagined myself writing, whether as just a hobby or a potential career. I always loved English classes, but I was a total math geek all through school, so to have all these stories bouncing around in my head all the time is a bit surreal.

Then, to have a paperback book in my hands, with my name on it…

There really is no way to describe that feeling. It’s just incredible

Alright, so, third book in the Shifting Isles series, Return to Tanas follows the life of Dr. Graeden Crawford, second son of Charlie and Saira Crawford (from S.P.I.R.I.T. Division). Graeden is keeping a big secret from his family, and it takes getting trapped on the Isle of Tanas for him to finally find the motivation to confess.

Assuming he ever makes it back home… 😉

This book just absolutely exploded out of me. I literally wrote two-thirds of it in six days. The whole thing was just laid out in my head, plain as day, and my hands ached from all the constant typing I did that week.

Gods, was that really a year ago, now? How time flies.

Yep, just about this time, last year, I was writing this book, trying to keep ahead on my writing schedule. Ever since then, I’ve been absolutely stuck on the next book (Broken, Shifting Isles Series Book 4), but thankfully it’s finally starting to come together — and hopefully in time for its December release date. In the meantime, though, I’m so excited to share this newest baby of mine with the world.

Graeden was a lot of fun to write. He’s kind of an asshole, but with a reason. And the reason…

Well, you’ll just have to read it. But I will say this: The big reveal gets me choked up every time.

And I wrote the damn thing.

Still, every time I get to that line, the tears of joy and excitement and relief start welling up. Can’t be helped. It just gets to me.

I had a lot of fun with this one delving more into the comparisons of Tanas (a socialist country) and Agoran (an anarcho-capitalist society). The first two books did that a bit, each being set on one of the Isles, but to have both in the same story, it makes for a striking difference.

And lots of good tension. Oh, does Graeden ever love to argue with the Tanasians!

The book is now available in print at the publishing site, CreateSpace, as well as on Amazon.com in both print and Kindle formats.

I’ve also listed the book on Goodreads, and released the Pinterest board, for anyone interested in some of the visuals that go along with the story.

I particularly love the idea of holographic imaging for use in medicine — that concept was a lot of fun to play with!

87d3115e2ab62cdcd0625729e601ea0fSo, once again, enjoy! I’m off to get back to work on Book 4 while I’m stuck here in a hotel in a tiny little town in Texas.

Yeah, I really don’t do vacation right, I know…

I Novel, Inspiration, JA Wood, Publishing, Shifting Isles

Writing Therapy

G.R. Lyons

I’m feeling a bit like a failure as a writer lately. Well, for months, actually. I’ve been more or less stuck on Book 4 of the Shifting Isles series since last November, and it’s driving me insane. I deleted 50,000 words, regained a fresh set of 50,000, and now even those aren’t quite working for me. I know exactly where the story needs to go, but I can’t seem to make the words travel from my brain to my fingers to the computer screen, and I don’t know why.

In the meantime, though, I’ve been writing a lot (well, comparatively speaking) in future projects, primarily in the J.A. Wood Series. Considering those books won’t be out for at least three years, and I’ve got a deadline set for Shifting Isles Book 4 in just about five months, you’d think I’d have my attention where it should be, but I can’t seem to drag myself that direction.

And just about the only thing I’ve written with any real urgency in the last several months was inspired by some real-life pain.

I’ve posted before about the fact that I originally got into writing as a means of dealing with the aftermath of having been raped. Putting those words down on paper was by far the best way for me to handle the trauma and get back to some semblance of a normal life. It was a much more effective technique than any session with a therapist ever was.

It seems like any time something bad happens, if I can get it down on paper, throw the problem at my characters, it becomes a more manageable and survivable thing.

Aubbie 3-13-01 to 7-13-15
Aubbie: 3-13-01 to 7-13-15

Last week, we lost our Jack Russell. She was 14 years old, and came to work with us every day. It was sudden, so we had no time to prepare. The void it left was devastating. No more little dog sitting on my lap on the way in to work, no more old lady chasing after her toy in the office and keeping the customers entertained. No more dog-sitting for Dad and having the little cuddle bug snuggled up against me all night in bed. No more belly rubs and rolling around on the floor. No more happy little smiling pant.

I sit here at my work desk, with her bed and her favorite toy right beside me, and I just can’t stand it.

But what did my mind automatically do? It threw the problem at my characters. In the midst of all the crying I did (and thank the gods, I apparently actually can cry!), I started writing a new scene that involved a character suddenly losing his dog the same way.

I felt like a bit of a fool at first, thinking the whole mental exercise was highly inappropriate, but after a few days of thinking it over, I simply had to get it down on my computer.

The problem automatically went to my go-to characters, Will and Alex. They’ve been with me from the very beginning of my writing experience, and someday they will actually see existence in print (in I: An Unconventional Love Story), but for now, they’re sort of this ever-present conscience and motivator and emotion dump for all things I can’t figure out on my own. I’ve probably sounded like a crazy person over the years, talking about Will and Alex as though they’re real people, but it’s simply what I have to do just to cope sometimes. To each, his own, right?

So I dumped the grief on my characters, wrote out the scenes, and instantly felt better. The pain was more manageable, the grief less debilitating. It was a way to channel the pain, acknowledge it, and honor the memories all at once.

And now I’ve also got a new element to tie into the J.A. Wood series, since Will and Alex make appearances in those books as well…

Yeah. My entire world pretty much revolves around my stories, if you couldn’t tell. There are days I’m really not sure how I even keep it all straight in my head. Now if only Will and Alex could kick my ass a little bit and get me back on track with Shifting Isles Book 4…

Publishing, Shifting Isles

S.P.I.R.I.T. Division — Now available!

G.R. Lyons

S.P.I.R.I.T. DivisionIs there anything better than release day?

I think not!

Here we are again. Another book. Set approximately 30 years after the events of The Prisoner, this second volume in the Shifting Isles series follows the story of Honorary Detective Asenna Shyth, who has an inexplicable telepathic connection to victims of violent crime. The story takes place on the Isle of Agoran, the only free land in the world of the Shifting Isles. Instead of dull, dreary Tanas, this story is full of stunning cities and futuristic technology. I had a lot of fun playing around with ideas for eco cities (think: vegetable gardens growing up the sides of skyscrapers) and holographic imaging (I’m picturing something along the lines of Tony Stark’s technology).

In the story, Asenna Shyth uses her telepathic gifts to try stopping rapists and murderers before their crimes can be completed, but a serial murderer continues to elude her, leaving no DNA, no fingerprints, and no surviving victims to identify him.

And throughout it all, she’s also trying to break through her own amnesia.

The book is now live on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle formats, as well as directly from the publishing platform at CreateSpace.

You can also find the book on Goodreads, and I’ve unlocked the Pinterest board, for anyone interested in some of the visual inspiration I had for the story (please note, of course, that this may contain spoilers).

And now, on to Book 3!

Inspiration, Shifting Isles

How the Grinch Stole My Writer’s Block

G.R. Lyons

I haven’t really written much of anything since November. That’s a heck of a long and frustrating dry spell, especially since prior to that I’d been writing like mad (I wrote the first three books of the Shifting Isles series in as many months). About a month ago, it occurred to me that the reason I was so stuck was that I couldn’t connect with the main character in Book 4. I just couldn’t get inside his head for the life of me. There was nothing about him that was relatable or familiar for me personally, so all the writing felt wooden and uninteresting — which would certainly translate to wooden and uninteresting for my readers as well.

Once I realized that, I took the 50,922 words that I had managed to accumulate (read: scrape together) in that manuscript and deleted every single one of them. Started over. Went back to outlining and reconsidered every aspect of the plot.

So, for the last month, that’s what I’ve been battling. I went over my plot points, moved around some key scenes, found some nifty connections that I hadn’t considered before, built up a darker backstory and history between the characters, etc. With each new discovery, I felt better and better about the direction the story was taking.

But still I couldn’t quite fully connect with the main character.

Yesterday, while trying to turn my outline into a manuscript again, I was halfway through the opening scene when I got stuck again. I just wasn’t feeling the character, and I couldn’t figure out what it was going to take to really get inside his head.

It didn’t help that my office was a disaster of distracting noise…

(Wait…hold on…now we’re getting somewhere!)

So I had this character in a stressful situation, made worse by a growing headache. The frequent migraine was an element of the character from the very beginning of the thought process on this manuscript, and it rolled right into the new and improved version, so I just ran with it.

Of course, when it comes to writing a plot, you want to put obstacles in your character’s way, right? And what must certainly make things worse for a character with nasty headaches?

Well, light and sound, of course. Those always did it for me. Migraine = anything above absolute silence and perfect pitch black is just too much.

So I threw in some harsh lighting and an array of noises (slamming doors, people talking loudly, rush hour traffic, etc.), all to make things harder for my character when all he wants is to get home and treat his poor, throbbing head.

All he wants is to get away from all the noise, noise, noise, NOISE! (Thank you, Mr. Grinch)

And there it was. The entire key to unlocking my connection with the character, to make him more relatable, to make him seem more real to me. That little bit of myself that I could inject into him so that I could really get inside his head.

Noise sensitivity. Simple as that. And that was all it took. From there, I went nuts, and the first two chapters just exploded out of me. By giving him that one little element, he finally became real to me, and so much easier to write.

How I didn’t catch onto this sooner is beyond me. I’m constantly complaining about the amount of noise that surrounds me. On a daily basis, I’m assaulted by machines running, talk radio blaring, people chewing loudly, computers humming, people talking…

And people talking, and people talking, and people talking…

Seriously, why must people talk so damn much? And about nothing! And why must people assume that I have nothing better to do than sit and chat or listen to their incessant chatter? Why is it so inhuman of me to want to simply sit in peace and silence? Seriously, people, shut the mouth and pick up a book, for the gods’ sakes!

I really ought to be the Grinch for Halloween.

People talking: Hate. Hate. Double hate. Loathe entirely!

*deep breath*

Alright, rant over. But there it is. That little thing was all it took. Now I can finally make some progress on this book. I was seriously starting to freak out that the whole series was going to come to a grinding halt, but we’re back on schedule!

So why am I sitting here writing this on my work computer when I should be churning out manuscript pages on my laptop, you ask? Well, I may have accidentally deleted some files from my laptop, so it is currently in the capable hands of my trusty computer tech (thanks, Rob!), trying to restore the files. Thankfully, I didn’t manage to delete any story files (phew!).

So why not just try to write some pages on this handy work computer, you ask? Well, I may be a little bit of a habit fanatic, and writing on any other computer just isn’t the same. The shape and feel and level of the laptop is part of the writing experience, so I have trouble getting in the zone on any other computer.

I’m feeling a bit lost at the moment, quite frankly. Sort of like my child is out and expected home any time now and I’m anxiously pacing, waiting for that front door to open…

Inspiration, Lethean, Shifting Isles

Epiphany, Self-discovery, and Other Writerly Insights

G.R. Lyons

10857995_1655437044682890_3877588118554457830_nThe more time I spend writing, the more I realize the truth in this statement. It’s amazing how much I’ve learned about myself because of the writing process, and I keep having these little flashes of insight that jump out and surprise me. Sometimes, they even shock the hell out of me.

I recall expressing this very sentiment once, a few years back, about how I was learning about my own philosophical and emotional growth by watching how a particular character grew and developed over the course of writing her story. My sister’s response was, “Yes, but you wrote it, right?”

Right. Exactly. Which probably meant it should have been a conscious thing. Yet, the more I think about my writing, the more I realize there are things coming out that I never even really knew were in my head, and the meaning I’ve been able to derive from those things has impacted me in various ways over the years. Some, trivially. Some, of vital importance.

Somewhere in the middle range of that would be about where I’d put the insight I got tonight while thinking about the latest manuscript I’m attempting to wrestle out of my brain. After three solid months of flying over my keyboard and producing three complete 90-100k word manuscripts, I came to a screeching halt when I tried to attack the fourth. That was in November, and I’ve pretty much been dragging the brake pedal ever since. Four months of almost zero progress. Ugh.

It drove me nuts. (Alright, that’s already too many automotive-related metaphors. Clearly I’ve been working in the family business too long).

I feel a massive void when I get writer’s block, like a piece of my soul is missing. It gets to the point that I want to tear my hair out and throw a fit because I can’t understand why. And, of course, I can’t just step back and let it go, give myself a breather, and come back to it later. I keep trying to force it, which, of course, never works.

So, I start looking for excuses or explanations:

-I’m not exercising enough, so maybe I need that to clear my head. Except, well, really, I’ve gotten along with my writing just fine without exercise before.

-I’ve been under a lot of stress at work for the last year. And that’s an understatement. But now that stress is (mostly) behind me, and has cleared a TON of space in my head. So it shouldn’t be an issue, right?

-I’m suffering a bit of a personal crisis, one that is difficult to talk about in the decidedly red zone in which I live. Hell, it’s the kind of thing that’s not even often accepted in blue circles; and, since I quite decidedly subscribe to neither of those colors, it leaves me feeling a bit stuck in the middle. But, surely, since my writing has always been an escape from real life, why should this one issue hold me back when others in the past have not?

-It’s this time of year. I always get stuck this time of year. Right? Maybe? No, maybe not.

-I’m too distracted by excitement over releasing The Prisoner at the end of the month. Yes, true, quite true, but even that shouldn’t really be stopping me from staying on schedule with the rest of the series.

Well, then, WHAT THE HELL COULD IT BE?!?!

Thus, we arrive at a moment, earlier this evening, whilst in the shower (and, really, why is it that those flashes of insight or plot inspiration always happen when one is covered in soap and nowhere near a pen or a keyboard?!?! *sigh*). All along, these last several months, I’ve been laughing at myself over the fact that I can see bits of myself in many of my main characters in this upcoming series, and was inwardly joking about which one most closely resembled me.

Then it hit me: The protagonist in the current manuscript is someone with whom I absolutely cannot identify whatsoever.

*blink dumbly*

*stare at the wall*

*bang head against said wall*

Bloody hells, why did I not realize this before?

Then, in a rush of tumbled thoughts that followed that insight, it struck me immediately, over the course of all my work, which books were easiest to write and which were most difficult.

Wanna guess which were most difficult?

Yeah, the ones with protagonists I just couldn’t get into, because it was unfamiliar territory.

And if I as the writer can’t identify with a character, how in seven hells am I going to make him or her convincing enough for a reader to identify with as well?

So, not counting the first few novels I wrote a few years back and which will never see the light of day, I started really thinking about my protagonists:

In The Lethean (Lethean Trilogy, Book 1), both Victoria and Landon are bookish and independent. *insert big glaring sign over my head that reads, “That’s me.”*

In Hale and Farewell (Lethean Trilogy, Book 3), Hale is part of a team out of necessity but is naturally an independent player. She likes to work alone. Yep. Me.

In The Prisoner (forthcoming work), Benash loves his routine. Even though he really hates it, he also loves it because it’s safe and reliable. Yep. Me for sure.

In S.P.I.R.I.T. Division (forthcoming work), Asenna is a neat freak, a bit OCD, and a perfectionist. Sounds familiar.

In Return to Tanas (forthcoming work), Graeden doesn’t like restrictions and regulations, especially when the prevent him from doing the right thing, or something he wants to do that would harm no one. As a libertarian / anarchist myself, that’s remarkably familiar territory.

In The Five-Hour Wife (forthcoming work), Jani is a reclusive writer with a side job that’s her true passion, and she idolizes talented individuals from a distance. Yeah, I don’t know anyone like that. *ahem*

And so on and so forth. Then I compare these to the two books so far that have given me the most trouble.

In Uncommonly Strong (Lethean Trilogy, Book 2), I had a remarkably difficult time writing Joseph and Sati’s story. Joseph I could semi-sorta relate to, but writing Sati was like pulling teeth. With tweezers instead of pliers.

Thomas and Spencer, on the other hand…

I loved writing that couple. I loved their quirks, their relationship, everything about them. Thomas and Spencer were so ridiculously easy to write.

For a while, I thought I was simply distracted by the dynamic of Thomas and Spencer because of a few personal quirks of my own, but tonight it hit me:

Thomas was the real hero of the story. Not Joseph. Thomas. The one who was always supporting Joseph and doing everything he could for the sake of Joseph’s happiness. The rock in the family, despite his own sufferings. The one who always put aside his needs and feelings in order to make sure everyone else was alright first. Thomas was the one in the hospital urging Joseph to hold on, and there was no way Joseph was going to survive that moment without his brother’s support.

Why the hell didn’t I write that story with Thomas and Spencer in the lead roles? Looking back, that would have made much more sense, and it all probably would have fallen together a lot more easily than it did.

Then I look at this current manuscript with which I’m struggling (Broken, Book 4 in the next series), and I realize that there is absolutely nothing about Daivid that feels familiar. Nothing with which I can identify.

No wonder writing him feels like pulling teeth all over again.

Clearly, I’m going to have to go through a few dozen more “What if” scenarios to see if I can’t tease out the right detail to make Daivid’s story work.

Because, if I can’t, then the rest of the series either falls apart or remains at a grinding halt.

And I am so ridiculously eager to get to the book and series that follow this one (gods, I must be insane, juggling all these story ideas in my head), that I simply must make this one work so that everything will tie neatly together and progress the story along.

News, Publishing, Shifting Isles

Confessions of a Print Snob

G.R. Lyons

In the great “Print vs. eBook” debate, I come down absolutely, positively, without a doubt, one hundred percent on the Print side.

There’s just nothing quite like the look, feel, and smell of a real, printed book in my hands. I’m constantly running out of shelf space in my house, and lugging around a book everywhere I go isn’t the most convenient thing in the world, but I would never give up my library for an eReader.

I’ve tried reading books on a Kindle, or even on my phone. I even just try reading short articles on my computer screen. All of it strains my eyes and tries my patience, so I find myself skimming and wondering, “Have I reached the end yet?”

So, whenever I come across a listing for a book — one that has great reviews and sounds really interesting — and discover it’s only available in digital format…

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE AUTHORS? WHY ARE THEY NOT RELEASING THEIR BOOKS IN PRINT? GAH!!!!”

*slow, deep breath*

Alright, I’m calm now. I promise.

So many books I’ve come across, and I’ll never read them, because they’re not available in print.

*disappointed sigh*

But then! Ah, but then…

Then I come to the point in the writing process when I have to start running through final edits and format the text to get it ready for print. As the not-so-tech-savvy person that I am, it’s a trial and a half, let me tell you. I go through the process of formatting the text so that the final printed book will look like a nice, neat, professional product, and all the while I’m grumbling and tearing my hair out and shouting at my computer when it doesn’t seem to do what I want it to do, and start to wonder why in the world I even bother to go through the effort at all!

Yeah, I know. Open mouth, insert foot.

It is at those times that I think, “Alright, so maybe these authors have good reason to not bother formatting for print.”

Maybe.

Alright, authors, I apologize. It is frustrating, tedious, and time-consuming to format for print. Setting up a file for an eReader is so much quicker and easier, I can see how it would be hard to justify the extra time to create a neat, print-worthy product.

(Doesn’t change the fact that I’d really like to read some of your works and will never get to because I just flat can’t stand reading on a screen. It’s all I can do to slog through reading my own stuff on my computer when I’m editing a manuscript. My eyes are killing me right now.)

Then, there are moments, like today, when I finally get the finished text uploaded for print review. And, I mean, come on, look at this! How amazingly cool is this?!

interior review

Isn’t this exciting?! To see something that you wrote, laid out on a screen, looking almost like a real book, showing you a preview of the glorious thing to come! Let me tell you, I am giddy as a kid in a candy store right now, knowing that in a few weeks I’ll have a real book in my hands, once again, with my name on it.

Something that I pulled from my imagination and brought into the real world. It’s the most incredible feeling.

And when I have to go through the whole tedious process again in a couple months for the next book, I’ll be groaning and yelling and tearing my hair out again…

But, gods, it’ll be worth every minute.

News, Publishing, Shifting Isles, Teasers and Excerpts

Looking Ahead

G.R. Lyons

I’ve just gone through and added a few updates to the site, mostly to keep myself motivated and on-track. The last few months have been…

Well, you know the saying: You make plans, and life happens. Oh boy, does it happen.

Between massive stress at work and a bit of a person crisis, I’ve been having a really hard time focusing on writing. The odd thing is that I’m actually ahead of the schedule I’d set for myself, but over the last few months, I’ve been slipping farther and farther behind and letting myself get distracted and upset by life in general. So, to keep myself going and get this next series out, I’ve already posted projected release dates for each of the next fourteen novels, as well as some preliminary information about other works that I’ll be releasing after those. Hopefully having posted deadlines will keep me moving and give me something to look forward to.

Starting late next month, I’ll be releasing the Shifting Isles series, a set of fourteen books set in a fantasy world. At my current writing pace, I should be able to put out a new volume every three months. That is certainly the goal, anyway. That puts the series wrapping up in June 2018, after which I’ll be releasing a standalone novel and another series, all set in the same world but at different time periods. I’ll be posting more information about the Shifting Isles series, the standalone novel, and the following series as more time passes and more information can be released without offering spoilers.

I know, this is like Marvel-level teasing, but I just can’t help myself.

The hard part is that all of this is teasing me as well. The new series idea (which won’t start releasing until 2019) is really grabbing my attention lately and making it difficult to focus on drafts for the upcoming SI series — another reason for the posted deadlines. Now I have to put the new ideas aside and get these SI drafts done so I can finally move on to the editing stages.

So, on that note, back to writing!

Inspiration

The Writercoaster

G.R. Lyons

One thing I’ve been learning over the last few years since I started writing — and what continues to strike me each time it occurs — is that creating is a ridiculously emotional experience.

You start out with an idea, and feel on top of the world. It’s the greatest idea ever. You’re super excited and can’t wait to see it come to life.

Then you hit the snags: the plot holes that won’t fill, the characters who won’t cooperate, the target word count that remains elusive, the research that returns a fact that makes your entire story unravel, etc. Then frustration sets in. This is the worst idea ever. Why are you even doing this? You must be out of your mind.

Suddenly, you find a solution. Aha! The pieces fall into place: changing a setting sparks the right scenario to fill in a plot hole, adding a bad habit to a character makes him more believable and throws in a subplot, adding or subtracting a minor character radically changes the mystery of the backstory, etc. You’re a genius! You’re excited again! This is going to be a masterpiece and you can’t wait to share it!

Then life gets in the way — work, money, families, relationships, etc. — and you either don’t have time to write, or you’re so plagued by stress that you just can’t focus. That source of happy escapism just isn’t quite enough to pull you away from reality, and when you try to sit down at the computer and type a few pages, nothing comes to you. You try to force it and it makes it worse. You finally just give up and walk away, wondering if you’ll ever see yourself write, “THE END.”

The next day, you wake up, an idea in your head before you even manage to get your stumbling, half-awake self out of bed to shut off the alarm. You head straight to the computer and start typing, and keep typing all day, charging ahead with the end in sight.

And then, it happens. You finish writing the climax, wrap up the little end bits, bring your hero to success, and type those last few words.

THE END.

Elation! Wondrous, marvelous joy! You’ve done it! Look at what you’ve accomplished! A whole book! Still a rough draft, yes, but a whole book! You’re amazing! You’re ecstatic! You can’t stop smiling, and maybe even laugh out loud at the computer screen.

Two seconds later, you find yourself sitting back with a joyful sigh of relief, and then it hits you:

Now what?

*stare at the screen, blink dumbly, scratch your chin*

 

On Monday night, I finished the first draft for the third book in my next series. I wanted to have at least the first three or four books written before I started editing the first book and preparing it for sale. Since it’s an extended fantasy series and I’m doing world building as I go, I wanted to make sure I could plant little pieces in each book that would hint back / forward to other books in the series.

Alright, so this was also an excuse to put off editing. I hate editing. That’s when the writing process really starts to feel like work, rather than fun.

I’ve got three complete rough drafts now, and once I finished the third, I was sorely tempted to right on to writing the fourth, rather than taking a break to go back and edit the first.

So, as I sat there on Monday night, thinking, “Now what?”, I couldn’t decide which way to go: on to the fourth, or back to the first?

I finally shut off the computer, post-book depression already settling in.

I went to bed, and couldn’t fall asleep because ideas for Book 4 kept bouncing around in my head, but then I started noticing so many elements missing that I knew I couldn’t dive right into it quite yet. I had some more outlining to do.

The next day, post-book depression hit even harder, and since then I’ve just been staring at my computer and my notebooks, and not adding a single thing to them.

This will probably last a few days, as it normally does, and then I’ll be back in the saddle, writing or editing, and back on the upswing of the coaster, excited about what’s coming up next.

To be followed, of course, by the inevitable frustrations.

“Gods, why am I doing this? What was I thinking? Write a whole book? A whole bloody book? I must be mad! I can’t do this! It’ll be awful. I’ll sound stupid. No one will like it!”

Which — also of course — will be followed by, “Gods, this is amazing! I love it! I have to share it! It’s brilliant! It’s wonderful! Look at what I’ve done!”

Up and down, up and down, every single time. I wonder if this is the kind of thing to which one ever gets used.

Inspiration, News, Publishing, Shifting Isles

The Prisoner

G.R. Lyons

It’s amazing to me, even after five years of living and breathing made-up lives, that inspiration can come from the most unexpected places or in the silliest, simplest ways.

Now that I’ve got the next series — 14 books set in a fantasy world — more or less outlined, I’m diving into writing the first book, The Prisoner. Months ago, I’d already started putting down material for it, and got about 70 pages in when I hit a painfully hard brick wall.

The story just wasn’t going where I wanted, and I started losing interest. It seemed no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to flow properly. So, I set aside those 70 pages in a separate Fragments file and started over.

The second attempt didn’t go much better. It was an improvement, true, but still lacked the proper plot flow. So I stopped again. I was quickly digging myself the same grave in which I’d found myself while writing Uncommonly Strong, and after that disappointing experience, I certainly did not want to slog through the same frustration again. I wanted the exciting experience I’d had writing The Lethean, and especially Hale and Farewell: the kind of experience where the story just flows because you love the characters and know exactly where they’re going, even if some of the details surprise you along the way.

Once I finally got a proper outline done for The Prisoner, that helped quite a bit, but I still couldn’t make myself sit down and continue writing. My love for the characters had simply died, and I wasn’t moved to tell their story anymore (not even that of the female lead, and it was her character that triggered the original concept, though she quickly got switched from heroine to antagonist when I realized the story worked better not centered around her character arc). I tried forcing it, and that just made it all worse.

It was getting to the point that I almost wanted to give it up — except for the fact that I’ve quit everything I’ve ever tried in my life and I’ll be damned if I ever allow myself to give up writing. Thus, I finally just made myself set the whole thing aside so I could get my mind on other things, and hopefully clear my head enough to re-attack it later.

I turned from writing to reading, and as I was going through one series, I became totally engrossed in a character who was beautifully complex and conflicted. Despite the fact that the plot really didn’t pull me in, I found myself still rapidly turning the pages because I was dying to know how things would turn out for this man.

The whole time I read him, I was picturing him looking something like Tom Hiddleston à la Loki — pale, dark, fierce, and a perfect fit for this particular character’s personality (in my mind, at least).

And that’s when it hit me: This was exactly what I was looking for in my own character, but all the while I’d been trying to picture him quite differently.

The Prisoner has gone through quite a transformation from the way I had originally envisioned, but once the male lead came into play instead of the original female lead, one of the very first scenes that I put down was inspired by an insignificant detail — probably just a word or a facial expression — in a Bollywood movie starring Hrithik Roshan, one of my favorite actors. Consequently, his appearance became the foundation for the character I was trying to write.

I love imagining my stories in movie form, camera angles and all, because it helps me play out the scenes and brings it more fully to life in my mind (I’m sure I’m not alone in this habit). When I first started writing The Prisoner, I was going through it with the idea of Hrithik Roshan playing this character, because that was how I originally pictured the lead.

Beyond that one scene, though, I just couldn’t fathom him in any other part of the story. I tried to picture his face, his voice, his movement, and it just flat wasn’t working. I couldn’t see this character going through the dialogue and motions of the story while wearing Hrithik’s form, no matter how much I tried to force it just for the sake of sticking with the image I’d chosen.

Switch to something closer to Loki, though, and the whole character just instantly blossomed to life for me. That face I could see in all the expressions. That voice I could hear in all the dialogue. In one scene, when my character is told to give up his weapons, and he replies with utter calm and self-confidence, “No, I think I’ll be keeping these,” I hear that line in exactly the voice Hiddleston uses at the end of Thor 2, when Thor walks away and Loki drops his Odin disguise, and says, “No, thank you.” That low growl of a voice. That is exactly what I hear in this character’s dialogue. It’s just an absolutely perfect fit.

My love for and interest in the lead character skyrocketed, and all because of a simple change of look and demeanor.

As I went back to writing, I started filtering through the old material that I’d set aside and, to my indescribable joy, found that almost all of it was in fact usable, just with a few detail changes and with a little shuffling of the scene order. Once I had the right look and feel for the character and my interest in his complexities, goals, and moral weaknesses had returned, I realized the only thing making those scenes non-functional was my own lack of interest in the character himself, since I couldn’t fully picture those scenes in all their necessary depth. Now I can, and they work, and the story is coming together nicely.

I went through the file of my third rewrite attempt (amounting to about 26k words), and filtered in all the discarded content from my Fragments file, putting it all in places better suited to the plot, and immediately jumped to 43k words. Those rearranged sections will require some hefty editing, but the overall concepts and scene flow work so much better now than I had originally imagined. I’ve got ideas coming out of my ears, and now the only struggle is deciding which scene to write first because I want to write several at once: I’m that excited about this story. It’s all I can do to put off writing the climactic escape because a part of me wants all the rest of the story filled in first.

What a beautiful problem to have.

I guess I should have paid better attention to my own writing.

“Not all prisons are made of iron bars.”

Well, amen to that.

Lethean

Cheers to a Bad Review

G.R. Lyons

Yes, you read that right. I’m actually pleased I got a bad review (note this particular review isn’t something someone posted publicly but sent to me personally after reading my first book, The Lethean).

Since we live in the real world, a bad review was bound to happen. It’s just a simple fact of life.

You can’t please everyone.

And that’s a good thing! You’re not supposed to please everyone. If you did, there’d be something radically wrong with the very fabric of reality and human nature. Human beings are unique individuals — no two alike — so we’re not all supposed to like the same things. We’re not all supposed to fall into the same categories. We’re not all supposed to agree. And that, my friends, is a beautiful truth.

This, of course, is the foundation of libertarian / anarchist ideology, to which I wholeheartedly subscribe. It not only accepts but embraces the fact that each human being is a unique creature with his own wants, needs, likes, and desires. Any other philosophy attempts to squeeze individuals into confining categories that don’t apply at all times and places, lumping people together under labels that aren’t truly accurate.

Thus, I embrace the fact that this particular reviewer did not like my book. That’s a good thing. I don’t want everyone to like it. Besides the fact that, if I did want everyone to like it, I’d only wind up sorely disappointed, I would also be guilty of denying human nature and my own individuality. I don’t want everyone to like the same things I do. I don’t want everyone to be just like me. I want to be myself, and no one else needs to be that but me.

Now, is that to say a bad review didn’t sting? Sure it did, on some level, but for that matter it also provided a good learning experience. Some of what this reviewer complained about told me that he didn’t give it quite as close a reading as I might have liked, but he also gave me some truly helpful feedback that I can put to good use. A weakness of mine was pointed out that I can now learn from and correct in my later works, and this will only help me build up my tool chest when it comes to crafting a good story. Thus, I am thankful for the reviewer’s constructive criticism.

So cheers to the (constructive) bad review! Now I’m off to continue working on the next series, and with every little bit I learn and discover, the better these stories grow in my mind. I can’t wait to get them down on paper!