PSST, HEY YOU

REAL QUICK

C’MERE

*opens trenchcoat*

*trenchcoat contains an infinite cabinet of birds, good birds and bad birds and strange birds and mad birds, from the hooded pitohui to the Eastern Phoebe to the grebe to the rough-faced shag, and they all whisper to you in tandem: you really want the Miriam Black books*

Okay so — last night, I launched The Raptor & The Wren to a full house of wonderful readers last night at the also wonderful Let’s Play Books in Emmaus, PA. And I’ll be at the Elgin Literary Festival (ELF!) this weekend to give a talk and also attack you with owls. I mean, sign your book?

Ahem.

So — note that if you want a signed book from me, whether it’s the Miriam Black books or really, any of my other books, then Let’s Play Books has you covered. They will ship to wherever you are. Check out their website and contact them via their email or via this antiquated device I’ve heard about called a “pa-honie” —

*receives note*

Ahh, it’s pronounced FONE. Cool.

Also!

Tor.com is doing a giveaway of the series, so go check that out. Their giveaway runs till January 26th, so you’ve got a couple days.

If you’ve checked out this series, thank you — it’s been a long, weird, wonderful labor of love. Please to enjoy, and tell your friends. Or don’t tell them, I’m not your father. But I will be when I get this time machine up and running, just you wait.

P.S. one more quick thing — if you’re going to ECCC in Seattle, I will be there. My schedule is here! Also, I’ll be attending the Worldbuilders Party that Friday (details here), and I’ll be running a game of Balderdash at my table, so donate to the charity, come hang out, play a wordsmithy game about lying liars who lie, come out to the coast, we’ll have a few laughs.

With the passing of Ursula Le Guin — whose short work I read very early, and whose longer work I only read much, much later — I am reminded of some advice she’d given about writing, and given what is sometimes the focus of this blog, I thought I’d highlight her words here.

(Note: do read her original answer here.)

When asked how one writes something good, she responded with:

The way to make something good is to make it well.

If the ingredients are extra good (truffles, vivid prose, fascinating characters) that’s a help. But it’s what you do with them that counts. With the most ordinary ingredients (potatoes, everyday language, commonplace characters) — and care and skill in using them — you can make something extremely good.

Inexperienced writers tend to seek the recipes for writing well. You buy the cookbook, you take the list of ingredients, you follow the directions, and behold! A masterpiece! The Never-Falling Soufflé!

Wouldn’t it be nice? But alas, there are no recipes. We have no Julia Child. Successful professional writers are not withholding mysterious secrets from eager beginners. The only way anybody ever learns to write well is by trying to write well. This usually begins by reading good writing by other people, and writing very badly by yourself, for a long time.

There are “secrets” to making a story work — but they apply only to that particular writer and that particular story. You find out how to make the thing work by working at it — coming back to it, testing it, seeing where it sticks or wobbles or cheats, and figuring out how to make it go where it has to go.

And on the subject of writing to a market or following prescribed rules:

If your manuscript doesn’t follow the rules of what’s currently trendy, the rules of what’s supposed to be salable, the rule some great authority laid down, you’re supposed to make it do so. Most such rules are hogwash, and even sound ones may not apply to your story. What’s the use of a great recipe for soufflé if you’re making blintzes? The important thing is to know what it is you’re making, where your story is going, so that you use only the advice that genuinely helps you get there. The hell with soufflé, stick to your blintzes.

We make something good, a blintz, a story, by having worked at blintzmaking or storywriting till we’ve learned how to do it.

With a blintz, the process is fairly routine. With stories, the process is never twice the same. Even a story written to the most prescriptive formula, like some westerns or romances, can be made poorly, or made well.

Making anything well involves a commitment to the work. And that requires courage: you have to trust yourself. It helps to remember that the goal is not to write a masterpiece or a best-seller. The goal is to be able to look at your story and say, Yes. That’s as good as I can make it.

(I find that advice to be very, very freeing.)

Le Guin, having been done with novels, gave herself in 2015 to the task of answering a considerable number of writing questions at Book View Cafe, and I think you’ll find much of what she says there interesting and useful, and I encourage you to read the literally hundreds of answers she gives. I’ve popped in a few more delightful bits here —

On being asked the difference between literary fiction and genre:

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog about Genre Fiction vs Literary Fiction in which I stated Le Guin’s Hypothesis:

Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it.

I find this saves a lot of head-scratching.

On those who believe that one style of POV is correct when writing prose:

Distrust anybody — fellow writer, agent, editor — who tells you that fiction must use only limited third person.

It’s trendy at the moment, sure. But the surest way to go out of vogue is to be in it.

As currently practiced, limited third person is (like the present tense) a kind of flashlight beam — it gives a brilliant, narrow, simplifying intensity of vision. It’s well suited to many short stories and to the kinds of novel where a fast pace and a tight focus are prime values. It lends itself to detachment and irony.

The unlimited third person, the de-centered, flexible, moving point of view, is natural to stories and novels in which character and emotional relationships and interactions, cultural contrasts, etc., are important, in which problems aren’t solved by a gunshot or a bomb but by being worked out (or not worked out) over time.

Forcing such a narrative into a single POV will limit it and may cripple it. Write your story the way it wants and needs to be written. Change your POV when you feel like it!

Only, be really, really sure that you know how to do it…

On writing to, and thinking about, your so-called audience:

“Audience” literally means “the people listening” – which tells you what an odd business writing stories down is. We are silent performers in an empty room. We lack the instant feedback that maintains and sharpens the story-teller’s consciousness of and relationship with the audience. So, does the writer consciously try to imagine a reader? An ideal reader? A whole lot of readers? Or are we each our own audience, writing a book we’d like to read, the way we’d like it written? Or do we seek a peer-group for the feedback? Such choices are entirely up to you the writer. And nobody can say what the right balance of conventionality and expectability, challenge and originality, is for you. Tailoring your writing to a specific audience/market is good for writers to whom salability is a prime value, for others it can be demoralizing, a sell-out.

The only advice I can offer is tentative: If you imagine your “audience,” your readers, imagine them as intelligent and sympathetic — ready to read you if you give them the chance.

And really, one of my favorite bits, she talks about success as a metric in writing:

Esme, I think the word success confuses people. They get recognition mixed up with achievement, and celebrity mixed up with excellence. I rarely use the word – it confuses me. I didn’t want to be a success, I wanted to be a writer. I didn’t set out to write successful books. I tried to write good ones.

Receiving recognition is very important to a young artist, but you may have to settle for achievement with very little recognition for a long time. You ask about me. I wrote and submitted my work to editors for six or seven years without getting anything published except a few poems in poetry magazines – as near invisibility as you can get in print. It kept me going, though. Then I got two short stories accepted within a week, one by a literary quarterly, the other by a commercial genre magazine. From then on I had some sense of where to send the next story, and began to publish more regularly, and finally placed a novel. Each publication added to my self-confidence. Growing recognition added more. But the truth is, I always had confidence in myself as a writer – I had arrogance, even. Yet I had endless times of self-doubt. I think what carried me through was simply commitment to the job. I wanted to do it.

Talent is no good without commitment. I’ve had students who wrote very well, but weren’t willing to commit to write, to go on writing, and to go on writing better. But that’s what it takes.

“Feeling successful” – well, that’s something you have to work out for yourself, what it means to you, how important it is. You’re quite right that very good and highly celebrated writers may not feel “successful.” Maybe they have unhappy natures, and the Nobel Prize would just depress them. Or maybe they aren’t fully satisfied with what they’ve done so far, don’t feel they’ve yet written the best book they could write. But they have the commitment that keeps them trying to do it.

Hang in there. And don’t push it. No hurry! Writing is a lifetime job.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg.

I confess, I’ve never before read her book on writing, Steering the Craft, but I’m going to, now.

And, while you’re at it, given all that’s going on in the world, I suggest seeking out and reading (or re-reading) “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” It was the first thing I’d ever read from Le Guin and it has stuck in my craw (in the best worst way) since, imprinting in ways most stories never do. It’s a near-perfect example of how science-fiction and other imaginary narrative is uniquely posed to challenge us and trouble us and make is think about who we are and what we do.

[photo credit: AP]

WELL, HELLO THERE.

I WROTE A BOOK.

Actually, I’ve written six of them in this particular series — I finished a draft of the sixth Miriam Black book, Vultures, yesterday, and today sees the release of the fifth and penultimate book, The Raptor & The Wren. Available in both hardcover and paperback on the same day, and also, obviously, ebook.

Buy in print (Indiebound), or in e-book (Amazon | B&N | iTunes)

I’ll leave you with the official description* first:

Miriam Black, in lockstep with death, continues on her quest to control her own fate in The Raptor and the Wren, the brand-new fifth book in the Miriam Black series.

Having been desperate to rid herself of her psychic powers, Miriam now finds herself armed with the solution — a seemingly impossible one. But Miriam’s past is catching up to her, just as she’s trying to leave it behind. A copy-cat killer has caught the public’s attention. An old nemesis is back from the dead. And Louis, the ex she still loves, will commit an unforgivable act if she doesn’t change the future. 

Miriam knows that only a great sacrifice is enough to counter fate. Can she save Louis, stop the killer, and survive? 

Hunted and haunted, Miriam is coming to a crossroads, and nothing is going to stand in her way, not even the Trespasser.

(*Actually, I see a different official description on bookselling sites, which is honestly a little spoiler-iffic? Dunno what’s up there.)

And maybe we should jump into a couple-few reviews…

“Wendig expertly splashes Miriam’s considerable emotional pain across the page, never sparing her the price of her gut-wrenching circumstances, and closes with a shocking twist that is a true game-changer.” — Publishers Weekly

“With a dark storyline and an even darker protagonist, this vivid adventure takes readers on an emotional, violent ride. VERDICT: The fifth book in the series (after Thunderbird) drives further down the road into Miriam Black’s life: the trauma, the fears, and the forgiveness. It will please fans of Joe Hill and Joe Abercrombie.” — Library Journal

“Wendig dials to eleven the violent maelstrom that is Miriam’s life, pulling in a gaggle of familiar characters from past installments along the way, tying them together into a tangled rat king of death and discovery. This time around, the narrative hits even harder than before, propelling Miriam well beyond her comfort zone and forcing her to dig herself in even deeper to survive. As usual, Wendig writes like he’s driving a truck full of dynamite downhill, on ice, and his brakes are out, careening madly from one absurd action beat to another, with black humor keeping pace all the way.” — Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

“The Miriam Black series flips between genres, blending together elements of horror, mystery, psychological thriller, and urban fantasy into something deliciously addictive. Raptors is more on the thriller/horror/dark UF bent, a novel full of sharp writing, harrowing plot and subplots, and devastating characters. The Raptor and the Wren is an heartbreaker of a book that’ll leave you gasping for breath by the final page. Bring on the finale!” — Tor.com

If you haven’t seen the series trailer:

My own thoughts?

I wrote this book in the fall of last year, which was, umm, an interesting time politically, and one in which I found myself getting very little sleep, so this book was sort of stolen from and produced by a ongoing fight with insomnia. Not that I recommend it as part of your writing regimen, but honestly, I think that contributed well to the overall vibe of the book.

This is a pretty, um, rough book. Like, if you imagine the Miriam Black books to be an entire series of Empire Strikes Back-level downers, then this book is the Empire Strikes Back of that series. It represents a hard row to hoe for poor Miriam, and shows her growing and changing while also grappling with a series of new existential threats for her and those around her.

It also contains an owl called BIRD-OF-DOOM, so there’s that.

I never know exactly where to put the Miriam books on a genre-scale — some call these urban fantasy, but this book has no “urban” in it, nor is it particularly fantastical, though the supernatural is an everpresent backdrop. It’s a little bit crime, for sure. It’s a little bit horror, most definitely. They’re thrillers, no doubt, supernatural thrillers, written with the kind of (hopefully) relentless pacing where you read it with a breathless pace — the pace of someone being chased through a house by a machete-wielding murderer.

Yesterday, as noted, I just finished the sixth and final (!) book, Vultures — which should come out a year from now, roughly. That one is a bit longer than all the others, and it both sad and exhilarating to have finished a six-book series. I won’t spoil what’s to come in that book, because then I’d spoil what’s to come in this book.

Beautiful cover, by the way, is from Adam S. Doyle.

Anyway. I hope you enjoy it, and the series. If you have enjoyed any of these books, I’d sure love a review written at a site like Amazon or Goodreads, or spraypainted on a city bus, or written in elegant calligraphy on the side of a whale, or burned into the moon using a big laser. Thanks!

A note: do not start with this book. You need to read the rest first.

The Miriam Black series is, in order:

Blackbirds — print | ebook

Mockingbird — print | ebook

The Cormorant — print | ebook

Thunderbird — print | ebook

The Raptor & The Wren — print | ebook

LOOK.

FOX.

The Writer Shed Fox is back — this year I’d only seen it (him? her?) by way of its footprints, but the other day after a snow, poof, there it was, right in front of the shed. I quick grabbed my camera and snapped a shot just before it ducked under a pair of boulders by our driveway.

Also, today is the day we met this doofus (seen there on the left) — at the time, at the shelter, she was named Sascha, but we found that too crude, too inelegant, and we wanted something with more class. So we ceded the dog-naming to the then-four-year-old, and he of course went with SNOOBUG, so here we are, with SNOOBUG the dog, who looks very much like someone took the head off a Corgi, stuck it on the body of a German Shepherd. A German Frankencorgi, perhaps.

Anyway.

I have some news to share but I can’t yet share it.

I also have another piece of news to share but I can’t share that, either.

I just got the edit on my massive monster-sized novel (Wanderers, clocking in presently at 260,000 words), and it’s a 17-page edit letter, and I’ve never gotten one of those before! I expected to hate it, to quiver, to run in fear, but everything was… like, really right on? It’s gonna take some work to kick this fucker into shape, but it’s worth doing, because I think this book is really something. I hope you’ll agree when it comes out next year.

Also, poised to finish Vultures, the final Miriam book.

Which reminds me:

Tomorrow.

The Raptor & The Wren releases. [print | ebook]

See you then.

Okay, last week, you got to pick a song lyric you really liked, and you wrote a story based on that bit of song poetry. Right? Right.

Cool.

This week, I’m giving you the lyric.

It’s from Sza’s “Drew Barrymore.”

(Lyrics here. Video here.)

The lyric in question is this line, the opening line the song:

“Why is it so hard to accept the party is over?”

The song has a lot of great lines, but that’s the one we’re going with. Take from it whatever inspiration you choose. Base a theme on it. Make it literal or figurative. Any genre will do.

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: Friday, January 26th, noon EST

(Note: I’m gone next Friday so there may not be a flash fiction challenge. Lately I’ve been getting a WordPress error when I try to schedule posts, and they don’t actually show up when they’re scheduled? I assume a variety pack of gremlins is to blame.)

Post at your online space.

Give us that sweet sweet link.

Go write.

So, a few weeks back I did a couple threads on impostor syndrome, which is a very common thing that writers of all experience and comfort levels seem to experience — I certainly do, and you probably do, too. If you don’t, you might be a monster, maybe some kind of Yeti, so get that checked out. I figured I should grab these tweets and pop them somewhere, like, say, at this little blog, to share with those who maybe missed the threads on Twitter when they first appeared.

This is two separate threads, broken out by asterisks.

And asterisks, as you know, are also Cat Butthole Emoji. So, look for the trio of ASCII cat poopers, and you know when the next thread is beginning.

[Note: I’m not using Storify for these anymore because Storify is going away.]

* * *

I will now tell my own impostor syndrome story, as it relates to @neilhimself.

So, two years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of getting to speak in NYC as part of @MargaretAtwood‘s birthday event at the 92Y.

I was one of the speakers alongside a set of luminaries like @leverus, @erinmorgenstern, and @neilhimself — in the presence of @MargaretAtwood herself.

I mean, holy shit, right?!

Already I was going to the event with the utter certainty I didn’t belong there. I felt like a shadow on an X-Ray, a notable stain on an otherwise beautiful skeleton.

When I got there, arriving a bit early for the event, I went into the green room and I was alone.

Except for Neil Gaiman.

Neil Fucking Gaiman. Good Omens! Sandman! The Ocean at the End of the Lane! Stardust and Coraline and American Gods and Neverwhere and…

(C’mon. Dark poet, elegantly mussed hair, you know him, you love him.)

And I stood there for a moment, utterly frozen. He was, if I recall, looking at his phone.

And I said: “I can go.”

Because I thought, I should leave him alone! I don’t belong here. THIS IS RARE AIR AND I DO NOT DESERVE TO BREATHE IT.

And then he Tasered me and called security.

*checks notes*

Wait, no.

He smiled warmly and invited me in and was friendly and delightful and made me feel like I belonged. The other authors welcomed me too and it was awesome, even if I (even now!) still feel like a stowaway on that boat.

As writers we so often have the feeling like we are a Scooby-Doo monster about to be unmasked. I don’t think you ever really lose that.

BUT — and here is a vital part of the lesson — you can help diminish that feeling in other writers by making them feel welcome and a part of the tribe.

Recognize other writers feel like impostors too — and you can combat the feeling in yourself by helping them combat it when you welcome them. In this, community blooms.

You’ll never lose it. But you can help others feel like they belong. And when community grows you feel less alone.

At whatever level you are, other authors are likely to feel isolated and impostor-ish. You aren’t alone. And you can help them not be alone, too. Thanks to @neilhimself for doing exactly that for me, that day. @leverus, @erinmorgenstern and obviously @MargaretAtwood, too.

* * *

Can we talk a little [more] about impostor syndrome? Let’s talk about it. More specifically, let me tell you how I — well, it’s not how I defeat it, but rather, how I lean into it.

DOCTOR PENMONKEY: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LEARN TO LOVE THE IMPOSTOR SYNDROME. Or something.

(This is a follow up somewhat to last week’s thread, which talked about the value of community in regulating impostor syndrome in others and, by proxy, in yourself.)

[Note, seen above]

So, the facts on the ground are, blah blah blah, impostor syndrome is bullshit, but most (all?) writers suffer from it regularly, you’re not alone, it’s totally normal, and so on and so forth.

But —

A lot of advice goes toward how you stop feeling it, which is not always helpful because — ennnh, you’re gonna keep feeling it. You just are.

Maybe you’ll experience it with less regularity, but it’ll be there. It’s like a ghost. You thought you got rid of the ghost but then you go to shower and BOO, the ghost is there, and you pee yourself a little, because ghost.

For me, writing is two things: it’s DOING THE WORK plus MITIGATING MY MINDSET. The first part is sitting down and gnawing your keyboard until words come out.

The second part is all in my head. And it’s a heady, gurgling broth of mental adjustment, from managing expectations to punching self-doubt in the kidneys to not comparing myself to others to not second-guessing myself and the book every 13 minutes, and so forth.

Part of the thorny tangle of my authorial brain-briar is the snarling snare of impostor’s syndrome. You feel like you don’t belong, as if at any moment someone will unmask you like a Scooby-Doo villain. AND I WOULD’VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WASN’T FOR YOU MEDDLING BRAIN WEASELS

And yes, I used the Scooby-Doo metaphor in the above thread, but I like it, and I’m keeping it, so.

*tasers you*

Here, though, is how I lean into my impostor syndrome rather than suffering from impostor syndrome:

I learn to embrace the joy of the forbidden.

What I mean is this: impostor syndrome wants you to feel like a new kid in class, and every moment of your career feels like you entering the classroom and going to sit down at a faraway desk as everyone stares at you, The New Kid.

But there’s a different version if it, where you experience an illicit thrill of being somewhere you’re explicitly not supposed to be.

It’s like sneaking backstage at a concert. Or hanging out in your high school after hours, after everything is shut and everyone is gone. Or getting a tour of the chocolate factory OOPS one of the kids fell into the drink ha ha ha that’s okay she’s chocolate now, it’s fine.

There are a few real-world analogs to this I’ve experienced — in Hawaii, I’ve been to places where you’re not supposed to go, off-the-beaten-path, and you can see some truly delirious waterfalls, beaches, cliffs, if you do.

Or, having crashed a party or an event you weren’t invited to? Suddenly you’re shoveling down fancy horse-doovers and pretending like you’re supposed to be there.

Recently I got to sit in First Class for the first time, and it was like, exciting because I knew I didn’t belong there. I was like HA HA FUCK YOU I AM DRINKING SCOTCH BEFORE WE TAKE OFF AT 11AM THAT’S RIGHT, I’M A FLY IN YOUR MILK, RICH PEOPLE

I SEE YOU LOOKING AT ME, GUY IN THE THIRD ROW. IT’S ME, THE BARBARIAN IN ROW 4, BUDDY. HUGS AND KISSES, GUY-WHO-IS-PROBABLY-A-CEO. HA HA HA SUCK IT

And it’s that “ha ha ha suck it” that feels so good about being somewhere you’re not supposed to be. There is a great deal of freedom, in fact, in that.

Being the barbarian at the gate comes with a great deal of reduced responsibility. Because you’re breaking the rules. You’ve changed the game. You’re not supposed to be here…

…and yet, here you are.

Impostor Syndrome can either be you, The New Kid, nervous about not belonging. Or it can be you, the Party-Crasher, joyfully gobbling down fancy foods and enjoying the anarchy of your uninvited presence.

* * *

DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N