photo by earl13

If you had turn to black magic at the cost of your soul to save lives, would you?

That’s one of the themes in Kim Harrison’s Pale Demon (Affiliate Link). Mind you, I’ve only read the one book in the series, and it’s not the first.Add that to actually finishing Laurell K. Hamilton’s Kiss of Shadows (Affiliate Link), and… well, there was a connection, and it’s not just these two books.

It’s a common theme. Why not? It’s such an easy source of conflict for main characters. They’re supposed to be strong — but are they becoming too strong? The protagonist can worry that she’s becoming a psychopath (she is), but she finds herself forced to take evil actions to defeat the bad guys.

She has to use black magic or the demons will win. She has to kill people to save others. She has to do naughty things to save the world.

That “has to” keeps her warm at night. She worries but always has this justification on hand. She has to be dead inside, or evil win. She can’t possibly do anything else, unless she wants everyone to be tortured, raped and killed.

But Mom, he started it…

It’s actually a childish justification, if you think about it. It’s not my fault, it’s his. You can’t blame me, you have to blame them. Like siblings tattling on each other. But Mom, he started it.

You see it in politics, too. The United States would just like to turn their cheek, but these terrorist countries just smack them and smack them until they have to retaliate. They may have to do horrible things to stop them, but they have to. They can’t sit on their high horse. They have to descend to dark levels to combat the threat.

You don’t want to descend to that level, but you have to. If you don’t, everything that’s good in life will be destroyed.

Of course, what else can you do? How long can you withstand people slapping your turned cheek?

After a while, though, I felt like just slapping the protagonist. (More so for Pale Demon, since Meredith, like Anita, likes to bring it up, but nothing happens around it. Kim Harrison uses the conflict as part of her plot.)

Has she ever tried to use white magic to fit a demon? Or did she just jump to the conclusion — demon, must use demon magic. (Remember that I missed the first eight books, so this could have happened then.) And if you only bring it up as an after thought, do you really care?

The thing is, it doesn’t matter. Well, okay, what I mean is, if all a character is going to do is descend to new, darker levels, why should I care?

It’s like how powerful Anita Blake has become. The Anita Blake series is a long, long series. In all those books, she’s become unwieldy powerful. She’s too powerful for her own good and she’s connected to way too many people. I’ve read and re-read all of her the series and I’m still like, huh, who’s that? The new characters that she sleeps with and “cures” when she first meets them… well, why should I care? It might be worth just wiping the slate down.

What about the hero?

Then you have characters like Link in the Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess (the game I’m finishing right now). He’s a hero, not an anti-hero like these protagonists. I haven’t reached the end yet, but even thought he’s subjected to goddess-knows-what, he hasn’t gone evil or walked the edge of psychopathy. Except in the vision by the one light spirit, but that was just a story.

He’s a bit klepto, what with destroying people’s pottery and stealing their rupees, but since Hyrule’s economy rests solely on him, he can be forgiven.

Frankly, he could have stopped long before now, like when he got rid of the Twilight. Everyone he cares about is safe. (Okay, Ilia didn’t have her memory, but wouldn’t he just be saving her embarrassment? When she realizes that the guy she said “I’ll never forget her face” is a guy she knew before?)

He’s not just out to destroy the bad guy. Or to protect himself from the bad guy, since they never come after him.

He just wants to help people — everyone he meets. Why else is he fixing the economy? Why does he do all the small requests?

And yes, he does kill goblins and stuff, but he doesn’t torture them. He doesn’t have a blank face for killing. He doesn’t even kill some of the things that attack him, like the monkey king and the yeti’s wife, but save them from dark forces. He even helps Midna get over her vengeance and focus instead on saving her people, Zelda and Hyrule.

My fiance argues that Link is an absence of character. We put bits of our own personality into him. I argued back that I would have just stopped there, mission complete. Why should I care about freeing the Twili, the people who keep trying to kill me? Perhaps Link’s more like the bright mirror, that shows the contrast between out not-good selves and brings to light our inner goodness.

I still think, character or absence of character, that writers can learn a lot from it. The same principle applies to Buffy. Except for the slaying, she’s a normal girl. She likes boys and shopping and hanging with her friends. She’s often cheery and tries to look on the bright side. She faces the problems of growing up. So when she goes dark… well, you actually care. Then she returns to her normalcy, instead of descending deeper and deeper.

She also doesn’t get more and more powerful to insane proportions, which is the problem of some long-running series.

Do we prefer the anti-hero?

Maybe we, urban fantasy fans and writers, just don’t like a hero. We need an anti-hero, because really, if the protagonist doesn’t stress about what she’s becoming, well, that takes out a whole bunch of the conflict. We’re too cynical to believe in the goodness of people. We’re looking for the grit, the inner darkness, the cynicism and harshness of life.

The conflict of having to become darker to defeat the enemy is a good one. What’s even better is the second half — being pulled back from the brink. Knowing where the line one shouldn’t cross is, and then being pulled back, by say the hunky male love interest? Or the friends.

What are the best examples of characters pulled back from the brink? What makes it work?

How can you see the dark if there is no light? originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on February 20, 2012.

Photo by Alvimann

Authors need author platforms. That’s how they sell books, especially for self-published, and that’s how they network and stay motivated and talk to other writers… well, the main benefit is to sell books.

But is it really necessary? Is that the best approach?

I haven’t been especially motivated to blog lately, mostly because I’ve been working on actual writing (and now have the Buffy and Angel series, but that’s neither here nor there). Then I start to worry – if I don’t work on my blog, I won’t get readers which means I can’t sell my first book when it’s finished.

Keep that in mind as you read the arguments going through my head.

The Downside: Less Focus on Craft

A long while ago, I read about this singer, John Mayer, who told students not to worry about Twitter or blogs or Facebook or anything else. If they have twenty minutes to blog, they should write a song. Taking care of the author platform should come second (a distant second) for how to spend your time to actually creating.

Think about it. Amanda Hocking was so prolific that she didn’t really need to market herself. She just didn’t a lot of really good books. Once a reader read one, they’d want to read another, and another…

That same principal is why publishers prefer series over a one-off book. Readers pick up the first, love it, and pick up the second, love it, and so on and so on. Eventually they become so invested in the series, that they’ll keep buying it, even if they don’t really like how it develops (or how often the the author publishes).

And in the end, it comes down to if you’re so busy blogging and tweeting and maintaining, when are you going to have time to write and polish your wonderful novel? Every hour you spend on social media is an hour you can have been editing or perfecting your craft.

As John Mayer said:

This time is a really important time for you guys because nobody knows who you are, and nobody should. This is not a time to promote yourself. It doesn’t matter. This is the time to get your stuff together.

More Downside: The Urge to Publish

When you have to blog and tweet and post on Facebook and all these things, then there’s always pressure to publish. You need to publish something these week, so let’s just zing out a short post or a short story. With Kindle and the ease of self-publishing, there can be even more pressure to just publish your novel — good enough, except when it’s not.

And what are fictional authors supposed to blog about anyway??? Non-fiction authors can easily identify their subject matter, but are non-writing readers really going to be interested in our tips on writing protagonists? And if you haven’t published yet, should you even be throwing that out there?

… Says the person who finds little impetice to write blogs. And who also hasn’t even published a book yet, nor is an editor.

The Upside:  People and the Future

On the other hand, an author platform with tons of devoted fans and friends can be a really nice bonus on your query. Editors are in the business of selling books and if you can show them that you have five hundred people who will buy your book in a heart beat, well, you’re looking a lot better than the person without anything.

Plus, it can be pretty motivating to see what other writer’s are up to and to write about your own struggles. It’s sometimes easier to come to a logical solution when you write your problem out and examine it from all angles, instead of yelling, “Oh God what am I going to do???” over and over again. The solution just comes from your fingertips.

Like now. This post isn’t really for other people. I don’t expect authors to come here and take my word as gospel. As I said above, I’m not even published, what do I really know? But as I write this and develop the arguments, the “next step” becomes clearer in my head.

Upside or Downside: The Competition

Then there’s also the “standards” requirement. Increasingly, you MUST be maintaining social networks and a website. Your competition is and your readers (when you have them) will expect you to be on there too.

The old style where authors and other celebrities were fundamentally unreacheable is coming to an end. You can tweet to your favorite authors on Twitter or talk to them on Facebook. And readers want to talk to their favorite authors and see what they’re doing. By starting a platform now, you will be ready and practiced and not going “Oy with the poodles already – I can write a novel but can’t write a good blog post??”

See the consequences and decide

You can’t really do it half-ass. If you write a blog, you have to come up with content on a regular basis or you won’t make much progress. If you decide to tweet or go on Google+ or do Facebook (or any other platform), you have to log in on a regular basis too and really engage. Half-ass doesn’t get results, it just wastes time.

You could probably find examples of both and make compelling arguments for either. Neither one is an easy option, since both will require effort, albeit in different places. In the end, it might just come down to seriously looking at something, the pros and the cons, and going “Yeah, I’ll take that approach, even though there are hard parts.”

Again, says the person who hasn’t the motivation to blog and hasn’t published yet.

Where do you come down? Platform or focus on writing? Or a middle path? How do you manage everything?

Write or Post? Develop craft or platform? originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on January 21, 2012.

And I couldn’t think of a darn one. My mind utterly blanked.

Then I got angry at myself. Of course, I know more kinds of creatures than “kitsune.” It’s just… gah, blank!

That’s when I tried to put a list together. It would be a new resource to glance up and down when designing new characters. It would naturally become too massive to be just one blog post.

So I started on Pinterest. It is an amazing tool to collect visual things, like arts and crafts and fashion (which seems like 80% of the pins).

Thus the “Mythological Creatures” pinboard came into creation. Now, when I need a new creature, I can just take a stroll through. Plus, I can make notes of different interpretations, like how the tengu in Black Bird look a whole lot sexier than the usual depiction or how kirin differ from Twelve Kingdoms to Pet Shop of Horrors.

For example, I’ve pinned…

Yuki Onna (Snow Woman)	Tengu from Black Bird
Source: google.ca via Tanith on Pinterest	Source: gallery.minitokyo.net via Tanith on Pinterest
Kirin from Twelve Kingdoms	Kirin from Pet Shop of Horrors
Source: darkmirage.com via Tanith on Pinterest	Source: stemcels.rubberslug.com via Tanith on Pinterest

It also turns out that it’s fantastic for planning characters too, especially their styles. In my current WIP, there’s Lara. She’s sort of punk, sort of goth, and her style would totally fit in contemporary times. Unfortunately, the world it’s set in is closer to the 1950′s/1960′s. While her style says so much about her character, I had no idea how to dress her.

Until I started looking and pinning. Now I have a whole pinboard of her looks to refer to.

So, I want to know, do you use Pinterest? What do you use it for?

How I Use Pinterest for Writing originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on January 4, 2012.

First Draft Revision on God Cursed

In 2011, I resolved to write at least 30 minutes every day. I hoped, by the end, I’d have… well, something. A proposal-ready book, a rough draft, pounds upon pounds of short stories. Okay, mostly a proposal-ready book.

Technically, I failed on that resolution. I didn’t write every day. I did, however, accomplish my goal in spirit!

See, I know I’d have a whole stack of rough draft or better novels if I’d just write continually. In the past, I’d go on a writing spree, lose interest, and quit for months on end. I didn’t improve because I didn’t practice and I had nothing to show for myself because I didn’t write. I felt terrible because I wasn’t a naturally brilliant writer. I had all these dreams — but where was the action? Where was the getting it done?

2011 was a year when I’ve done some part of the writing process throughout the whole year. It’s becoming a habit so ingrained that it may take me weeks to give it up properly. As a creature of a predictable schedule, I would then have a great big slot empty each day… and watching television just isn’t satisfying enough to fill it.

Trust me. The last time I tried to give up writing, I got so bored that I organized three closets/storage rooms in my apartment. On the other hand, if I succeed in giving up writing, I’d have a very clean house.

If it doesn’t work, give it up and try something anew

After falling in love a new with an old NaNoWriMo draft, I spent months editing it. Months. I pinned my hopes and dreams on actually publishing this one. It would be a masterpiece!

On the third draft, when I sat down to read it, I couldn’t even get through the first few scenes. It was just… ugh.

Utterly depressing. This stack of PDF pages represented months of work reduced to nothing to show for it but the response “ugh”. I didn’t even know how to fix it. I may have loved the characters and the arc later on, but this beginning truly sucked. No real person would read past the first scene.

So I shelved it and started something new.

That was probably one of my better decisions since a) I didn’t give up and b) I found something that I wrote a lot better. I found a voice that suited me. One that I could re-read and not say “ugh” but “wow”.

To be fair, it was not a completely new project. I found scenes from the novel, tentatively called Child of Darkness, that I had started at the beginning of the year (before falling in love with another ). When I read them, I gawked. Really, I did. I hadn’t written this stuff — I couldn’t have. It was good. It was a rough draft, but it still towered above the one I gave up. So I went back to working on that one.

I took a break from novel writing when I went to Europe, since I did not want to take a laptop. I wrote in a journal when I could, writing short scenes inspired by the locality and journalled a lot. When I came back, I was utterly jazzed and happy. It’s a strange feeling, being utterly content for days on end. I think I may have grown a little as a person.

Inspiration for one scene at Villa Borghese, Rome

NaNoWriMo doesn’t have to mean awful, if you use it to learn better

After Europe, October came and I put Child of Darkness away since I planned to do NaNoWriMo. I outlined a new book which took place in the same universe as Child of Darkness. That universe seemed to bring the best out of my writing and I didn’t want to let go just yet.

Instead of just writing 50,000 words, I vowed write 50,000 good words. I did. When I reread it in late December, it was the best first draft I’ve ever written. Not only that, but I also learned a lot about outlining and setting and not being afraid to attack new genres due to vocabulary difficulties.

What I didn’t realize before was while I said I outlined, I set myself up to be a pantser. That obviously failed. Hard. I needed to set myself up for success — a real goodness to gracious outline, with arcs and enough detail to know what I’m writing and enough flexibility for inspiration.

Now I’d say that if you don’t have at least ten scenes to start in three acts, you’re writing like a pantser.

As of December 30, 2011, I have finished the second draft. It’s now in the waiting bin until I get enough distance. It’s not submission-ready, although I wouldn’t be horribly embarassed for an editor to see it now. Maybe after this next draft, I’ll feel ready (and terrified) to write and send proposals. Holy moly, I might actually get a publishing gig, or some nice cathartic crying when I receive a lot of rejection notes. Think positive, eh?

Goals are helpful, they tell you what you want to do

I’ve seen some things around the Internet about not making resolutions but choosing words to live by. Or really, words to live by and then a long explanation of what exactly you mean. Which is good for them, if it works.

I however love actual resolutions — not the classic kinds like lose weight and quit smoking (since I’m naturally underweight and have never smoked), but the kinds with measures and actions. I know I succeeded because I did this.

My goals for this year include:

• Check items off of my life list.
• Get at least one novel in a query-ready state.
• Send at least one query to a publisher.
• Become less insecure. If I’m not good at something, then learn how to do it better. Don’t wallow in it. Be a nicer person. Finally grow up. (And yes, not a great goal in terms of an actionable plan. How will I know if I’m a nicer person? I’m working on a plan to come up with the plan.)

How was 2011 for you? What are your goals for 2012?

Hey, I Actually Achieved Something in 2011 originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on January 3, 2012.

Photo by Kittenpuff1

Every culture has it’s superstitions (even the ones that balk at such things). Some of them can be really fun, and others… not so much. With number thirteen for example, you could match it with a low birth rate that year.

And why thirteen? Just because it’s an unlucky number

1. If you sneeze and you don’t have a cold, someone’s talking about you.
2. If you sleep with something heavy on your chest (like a great big cat), you’ll have bad dreams.
3. If you cut your toenails at night, you won’t be with your parents when they die. But don’t think you’re safe if your parents have already passed away (if you’ve ever watched the anime of xxxHolic, you’ll know why).
4. If you visit a hospital, you may not find any hospital rooms with the number 4 (“shi”). 4 (“shi”) is a terribly bad luck number, since “shi” also means death. That’s why there’s two words for the number 4, “shi” and “yon”. (Although, in Chinese Numerology, you can pair 5 with a 4 to mean “never die”).
5. If you sleep after eating, you’ll become a cow.
6. Don’t stab your chopsticks into rice, as it’s part of a funeral ritual.
7. If you toss a shoe and it falls on its sole, it’ll be a nice day out. If it doesn’t, it will be terrible.
8. If you whistle in the dark, you’ll attract a snake or a ghost. Or you may just annoy everyone around you.
9. If you don’t finish your rice at every meal, you’ll go blind. (Wow… sounds like some other superstitions…)
10. The first dream you have in the new year will come true. Hope that it’s not one in which someone clones dinosaurs, and then decides it’s a good idea to bring a tyrannosaurus rex to your city.
11. If a picture is taken of a group of three, the person in the middle is doomed to suffer.
12. If a green tea’s stalk floats vertically in your cup, it’s good luck.
13. If a woman is born in the year of Hinoe-Uma (or fire-horse, according to the Chinese zodiac), she will be evil. Or just too fiery to be controlled by a husband. (If you were born in 1966 — that’s you!)

What your favorite superstitions, Japanese or not?

Thirteen Japanese Superstitions originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on December 10, 2011.

Photo by Dave

So what, or rather, who is Tsukiyomi? I’ve named my blog after him and more than a few people visit this blog to learn more about him. I haven’t written about who he is before, even though I’ve wanted to, because he’s just so gosh darn difficult to encapsulate. Since there’s so little (in English) about him, you need to fill in the gaps a little.

Tsukiyomi the attack

If you’re an anime or manga fan, you’ve probably heard of “Tsukiyomi.” If you’ve read or watched Naruto, you definitely have.

Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke’s somewhat evil/somewhat misunderstood older brother, has a special attack called Tsukiyomi. (It’s also good to note that the spelling can vary as Tsukuyomi). This attack traps the victim in an illusion of a dark world, where the user has complete control over the victim’s perceptions.

When googling for Tsukiyomi, he’s apparently better known as a genjutsu (illusion) attack. He is however the Shinto god of the moon.

Tsukiyomi the god

When Izanagi-no-Mikoto (who created the first land Japan) purified himself after entering the underworld after his lost wife, he inadvertently created three gods. Legends vary on exactly how he did it (some legends even mention a fourth, even lesser known earth god), but his children were Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi and Susano-wo.

Amaterasu and Susano-wo (or Susanoo, or a variation of other spellings) are more well known than Tsukiyomi. Amaterasu is the sun goddess, inventor of agriculture and the emperor was descended from her.  Susano-wo is a storm god with a fierce temper and rivalry with his sister and the legend of slaying the feared Yamata no Orochi, a dragon.

Shinto gods didn’t originally have gender. They only gained human form when the Buddha arrived with merchants and they turned into humans to greet him. Not the actual Buddha, mind, but his teachings when they were imported into Japan. So while it’s commonly accepted that Amaterasu is female and Susano-wo and Tsukiyomi are male, it doesn’t really have to be… Okay, Susano-wo’s tale makes more sense for the time period if he’s male (since he marries a woman and slays a dragon), but none of the other tales are that specific.

Tsukiyomi only really features in one well-known tale. He ascended to the heavens with his sister Amaterasu as the moon to her sun. Some say they were even married. One day, she asked Tsukiyomi to attend a feast prepared by the food goddess Uke Mochi. The exact method of the preparation of food differs from legend to legend, but in one telling Uke Mochi literally threw up the food onto the table. Tsukiyomi was so disgusted by this that he killed her. Amaterasu, furious at him, exiled him into the night so she wouldn’t have to see him. (This is why the moon appears at night, only after the sun has gone down).

So why did I name my blog after Tsukiyomi?

My original goal for this blog was to encourage expanding urban fantasy beyond vampires and werewolves. I still love those stories (and still am an uber-fan of Anita Blake, despite/because of my criticisms), but I also want to read (and write) about other kinds of creatures. I’m also an anime and manga fan, and absolutely love Japan (even if Europe distracted me). In university, I even tried to focus my religion major onto the Eastern religions. So obviously, a name reflecting this diversity would fit better.

Secondly, it’s about what Tsukiyomi represents. He’s uptight and proper, as you can tell with the story of Uke Mochi. Some of the heroines in urban fantasy can definitely relate, even if it wasn’t regarding sex. He is also (although I can’t find the reference now) intelligent and literary. Most fittingly of all, he’s the moon-god, which fits so well with the overall symbolism of urban fantasy. Vampires can only survive at night, the werewolf turns into a wolf at the full moon, and I think even the fae are affected by the moon.

(Thus, my blog design, with the full moon shining down and the torii (Shinto shrine gate) in the logo.)

Had you heard of Tsukiyomi before? What stories do you know? Who is your favorite Shinto god?

Who is Tsukiyomi? originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on December 5, 2011.

However, I did learn four things about novel-writing in general.

1. Outlines seriously help. Every year, I have this brief outline in my head which usually has this major problem: there’s not enough plot points rising up to the big scene. I tell myself that I’ll be inspired when I come to it. 5k or 10k in, I realize I have nothing to write except for the big scene. I try to think of something, can’t, and give up. I write it.
   But what about story structure and arc? Yeah, that’s gone. I’m just left with a big mess that could one day be turned into a real storyline, if I want to make the effort.
   Then there’s the opposite problem — outlining too much. That doesn’t work for me either. When actually writing from a massive although well thought out outline, I got bored. I knew what was going to happen. There also wasn’t enough room for inspiration. If I adjusted one thing here, it could throw off the entire book. (That book was never, ever finished.)
   This year, I plotted on paper (well, okay, Scrivener). Before NaNoWriMo, I brainstormed for a general plot arc — enough scenes to get me started and scenes of major events I wished to include. That gave me arc, and flexibility.
2. Of course, the same thing happened again… I ran out of scenes before I got to the 25k mark that started the big conflict. That’s when you brainstorm again and absolutely refuse to budge. Instead of worrying that you’re not writing, take the time to work through your plot. Name three activities that they could be doing (like courtship activities for my novel — this actually helped) and then build scenes around that. If necessary, arrange for a character to be introduced before you planned, if they will shake things up. But overall, the number one thing — don’t budge. Use your will power for more than writing words. The scenes will come.
3. It’s always dreadfully slow in the beginning. 1667 words seems like nothing now, but in the first week, writing for two hours after coming home from a full days work was torture. Worse, I was trying not to just spew out words. I wanted them to be good words. That’s hard.
   So I divided up my writing time. Instead of reading in the morning before work, I dragged myself out of bed and tried to write a few hundred or so words. Even if I could only write 300 words, that’s 300 words shorter than in the evening. Shorter bursts meant less fits of, “Oh damn it, when will this end???”
4. It’s easier to write scenery for places you’ve been than making it up. Or, at least that’s how it is for me, being a novice in setting. Going to Europe was a tremendous help, since I based most of the novel in a Venice-like city. Then when I built the scenes, I just imagined I was in one of those beautiful old homes (and I was in a lot of them through the continent) and wrote down the particulars. Likewise, you can swap places that you have been (like your own house) with one of your character’s houses. And hey, lucky me, this was one of my goals!

So how did I do on my goals? Well, before the final verdict is from my partial judge (who is not myself, I swear!), I know I improved on setting. As in, I have one! (or two or three… yes, my characters actually talk in places with semi-accurate details!) The little detail actions, I tried, but I think I only hit it half the time I could have. By the end, I tried to add them, but was feeling nothing but the overwhelming dialogue.

And more masculine male characters? Umm… Well, they’re not overly girly.

In addition, I’ve taken a bold step and entered my first writing competition: the NaNo-Virtuosos Contest sponsored by Curiosity Quills. It’s a contest especially for NaNoWriMo submissions, fresh from victory and still bloody and raw from the battle. I’m a little hesitant, but I think with the extra effort I put into to actually writing well, I have a decent enough chance.

(Update: Voting has started for Round 1! You can see my work and vote for me here)

So, how was your NaNoWriMo experience? Do you think it’s really true that agents get piles of new submissions hot off the NaNoWriMo press?

Oh, and my NaNoWriMo novel? I decided to christen it, “God Cursed”.

Four Lessons I Learned From NaNoWriMo originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on December 1, 2011.

In addition to the outline and basic character sketches, I’ve been researching.

Ten random things I’ve learned about the Victorian era

1. Jane Austen never took afternoon tea. Not through personal distaste or social deviance, but because afternoon tea was invented in the Victorian Era.
2. Subsequently, Jane Austen did not live in the Victorian Era. She lived in the Georgian/Regency Period, and died twenty years before Queen Victoria took the throne.
3. Most houses in London had running water (pdf) by the end of the Victorian era.
4. Rooms for entertaining were on the second floor, not the main floor. So, as soon as guests entered, they would be led up to the stairs to a drawing room.
5. The higher the room in the house, the less likely it was to be richly decorated (even bedrooms of nobles!). Rooms higher in the house were less likely to be seen by visitors, so the family did not need to spend the money to impress. Female servants generally lived in the attic.
6. Bedrooms were small, since Victorians spent most of their time in other places.
7. The Victorians had a lot of sexual slang. The idea was to keep it as vague as possible so that only people in the know would know what a person meant. This would avoid embarassment when talking to an actually proper woman.
8. Musical chairs and charades came from the Victorian era.
9. Women, after debuting at 17, used their fans to code  messages, like “come hither” or “stop approaching.”
10. Gentleman should learn self-defense, usually by way of a fencing school. Sword canes were ill-advised as a weapon, since young men would more likely draw it in hot-headed quarrels rather than to defend themselves against ruffians. Blackthorn cane (real, not the imitation that most city shops tried to sell) was better suited.

Ten Random Things I’ve Learned about the Victorian Era originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on November 1, 2011.

Every year I’ve entered NaNoWriMo, I’ve won it. It continually surprises me, but when I flex my will power, I usually achieve my goal. This year, though, I don’t want to just win it. That’s not really achieving anything anymore. This year, I want to push myself further.

As Chuck Wendig highlights, finishing a NaNoWriMo draft is like finishing Draft 0. You have some kind of massive document of words, but it needs a lot of attention to even get it to Draft 1. One year, my character just started daydreaming this second story in the middle of it. And the grammar… and the setting… and the characterization…

Oh, and as he says, it’s only 50,000 words long — 20,000 words shorter than a thinner novel.

I could just aim for more words, and while that would push me, I would just end up with 20,000 more crappy words.

(Of course, for people who keep saying that they want to write a novel, NaNoWriMo is an excellent push towards that goal. Now you’re a draft closer to achieving that goal, or realizing that you really just don’t care enough to continue. This just isn’t my goal. I need to get to the second draft and beyond.)

The concept

After my European adventure, I knew three things about my NaNoWriMo novel this year:

1. It will continue in my steam punk universe started in Children of Darkness, only twenty or thirty years earlier.
2. It will be about the Grand Tour, when young gentlemen travelled throughout Italy and France to gain culture. So my main character will be male.
3. As painters have depicted the Greeks as never possessing any clothing, so would my cat people.

Taking it to the next level

How do you take your writing to the next level? By recognizing what your writing currently lacks and then improve on that. Keep working at it until it becomes so natural that it just spurts out when you’re writing. Practice makes perfect, and all.

Among probably a long list of improvements I could tackle, I’m going to single out a few:

1. Weak characterization of male characters
2. Lack of setting
3. The details

Weak characterization of male characters

If you’ve read my short stories, you have probably noticed that my protagonists tend to be male. Among other things. Just from these short stories, I’m increasingly encountering the problem that I’m not a male. Never have been, never will. I’m not even much of a tomboy.

Because it is the Grand Tour, my protagonist will once again be male. Young British ladies rarely went on such travels, being that such travels were not for dignified women.

I worry that my male characters will come off as too feminine.

So, to help, I’ll be diving into some masculine blogs like the Art of Manliness. I know, I know, the “typical” man would be too lazy for the things like looking nice, at least these days. It does fit in with the time period I’m aiming for, when it was deemed exemplary for a man to care about his appearance. The blog also includes other topics like lifestyle and inspiration. It also provides great insight into how men think about their appearance and other topics.

If you have any resources you think I should look to, please let me know in the comments!

Lack of setting

I’ve written about it before, but I need to place my characters into a setting and have that setting do something for the story. They’re not just (maybe) in a bedroom or an office, but they’re on the top floor of the tallest building in the city, where the main character has a full length windows that he stands in front of while holding meetings in his office, hands behind his back. His colleagues thinks he does it to look confident and intimidating. He actually stands there to watch the merry-go-round in the park, because a certain someone had promised to show up there and never did.

Setting that morphs into characterization that becomes a plot. Ta da! I am capable! I just need to work at it.

The details

I need to give relevant details about the world, like what the characters are doing besides talking, minor events in the world, and the political landscape. Do you know what I can then do with that information? Use foreshadowing! Place it earlier in the novel, so the reader grasps that aspect of the world. Then when that element comes into play — ooh boy, the reader gasps.

It’s like how in Gail Carriger’s Soulless, she drops the new gentleman’s club for scientists in, while making it natural by having a minor character kick a fuss up about it. It seems like such a charming little detail, but then wham! Well, of course it was them.

Not to mention that just adding little details in like habits and interests and dislikes make characters more unique and more personable.

So, those are the three things that I’m focusing on in NaNoWriMo in particular. There are probably many other aspects I could work on, like distinct character voice (feel free to comment on which ones you’ve noticed in particular). Are you trying NaNoWriMo this year? Are you setting yourself additional goals?

Oh, and one thing I’ve learned about Victorian slang — Corinthian means a patron of a brothel. Which makes that scene in  Heartless a lot more odd than I had thought.

Pushing myself further with NaNoWriMo originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on October 15, 2011.

Genre: Steam Punk Urban Fantasy (Based on Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series)

Word Count: 1129 Words

Summary: Well, what is a vampire stranded in America supposed to do, to court a beautiful young lady who would rather compete in roller derby than be courted? Based on Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate cosmology, but using my own characters and taking place in contemporary times.

Photo by heanster

“You’re crazy.”

“Hmm?”

“I never understood why vampires assume roves are crazy. They never seemed crazier to me than the hive vampires. But now I know why.”

I straightened up from where I bent over the complicated little piece of machinery. “Why would you say that?”

Katie put her hands on her hips, a little too forward to avoid the gun underneath her suit jacket. Then, when I arched my eyebrows and Nicodéme, the august leader of the supernatural set in the city, giggled behind her, she gestured widely instead.

I looked over her should and said to my fellow rove vampire, “Humans are ‘crazy’ these days, do you not find? Gesturing wildly and carrying on and such.”

She sputtered. He swooped in like a handsome bat to take her into his arms. “Mmm?” he somehow purred in a French accent. “I love them, how do you say, funny in the head.”

That only served to make her sputter more and squiggle in his arms to either face him or beat him for the insult.

I turned away from the far too intimate display, and back to this machine of drudgery. Everything depended on such a ridiculous little thing, and I couldn’t even yell at it if it messed up. Well, yell at it and expect it to adjust its behaviour properly. I could bestow upon it so many epithets that even this intellect-less thing blushed red. Yet, regardless of how much I made it blush, it would still refuse to change its course. The day would just be ruined. Oh, and even my dearest Nevada would think me mad.

“Stop it!”

Nicodéme backed away, hands in the air, but still smiling mysteriously. Ah, so she had managed to pull her weapon. As official Sun Downer for the state, she wielded silver and wood bullets, one of the very few weapons that could kill a vampire or a werewolf. Well, I had told him as soon as he started his courtship with her, that he should be careful of what arguments he got into with her.

“You’re both crazy!”

“You’re seriously going to go out there, into a stadium full of punk roller derby fans,  and sing Soul Sister to this roller derby chick, and expect that she’s not going to kill you?”

All at once, we glanced towards the wide windows and down into the stadium. Hundreds had gathered into the small industrial building for the match. I had bribed the DJ to conveniently leave the above AV room right before half-time.

Katie had less conveniently divined my plans, ambushing me while I had more important things to concentrate on. She must have brought Nicodéme, possibly believing that he would convince me to cease this ‘crazy’ plan. In actuality, he seemed more inclined to enjoy the spectacle of my humiliation. It wasn’t humiliation, though, if I ‘got’ the girl.

“Are you masquerading as a werewolf?” Nicodéme asked. “You’re doing an admirable job. The ripped jeans were a very nice touch. Just like you had transformed while still wearing them.”

“It’s romantic,” I insisted. I didn’t bother to remind him that after three years of delicate negotiations, nefarious plots and assassination attempts, he had finally wrangled the local werewolf packs into a coalition with him (as the director, even! Unheard of!) and that such comments would not be

“From what I’ve seen of her, she’s not the type who wants romance.”

I fumbled with the disc, and raised my eyebrows at her. “What girl doesn’t want romance?”

“That kind of girl.”

I frowned. Miss Nevada was a perfectly respectable young lady. Even if she dyed her hair, wore dreadfully shredded outfits, and skated in a full contact sports like… well, like a certain class of man…

“Can you even sing? I thought singers became werewolves.”

“I may not have been chosen for metamorphosis for that specific reason, but…” I trailed off, unable to manufacture an appropriate end for that argument. I actually had no idea if I could sing or not. Never before had I thought to try. This might have been something to at least attempt before my large-scale romantic gesture.

To be truthful, I was entirely uncertain whether anything I had just said had any truth in it, and Katie well knew it. I couldn’t even remember where I had come from, or even my own metamorphosis day. Only that I had turned up in this American city twenty years ago with no money and no clothes like a werewolf! How ghastly. Oh, and that I possessed a British accent, which placed me a long way from whatever original territory I came from, which may have contributed to my ‘craziness’. The trials of being a vampire.

Nicodéme stepped in, lying to her with honey-like efficiency, “He can sing well enough. He can carry a tune, at least.”

Oh dear. She didn’t quite believe that. He obviously had used that tone of voice once too often with her. “Well, it’s too late,” I interrupted. “I’ve already arranged it. Half time occurs in two minutes.”

“Enjoy it, my dear,” her lover recommended, circling his arms around her again. Even though that was exactly the state that he wished to reach with Miss Nevada, the thought of an unmarried woman in that kind of relationship made me blush, as much as the stereo could. Which is to say, very little given my vampiric state, but mentally I was as red as… As something quite ridiculous.

It was common enough, as far back as I could even remember, I reminded myself. Where did such thoughts come from? Why was it so much easier for Nicodéme, despite being (presumably) hundreds of years older than me? The French, I thought despairingly.

“This stunt will be talked about for years. If the audience happens to demonstrate their disapproval of his entertainment, well, he is a vampire. He’s likely to survive.”

“While winning over the young lady,” I added, smiling. If I could manage to overcome my own needless galantry. While I was certain that my dear Nevada would appreciate the romance of the gesture, she would approve less of things such as galantry. She knew what she wanted, and if that was me, then to display reticence would prove quite dangerous.

“’Lady’ is not how I would describe her.” But Katie seemed unlikely to otherwise protest, or even threaten her beloved with her gun, even though she still held it in her hand.

“You also described this as ‘crazy’.”

She sighed, giving up completely. “At least you’re dressing like you’re in the right century.” She referred to my embarrasingly ill-worn jeans and t-shirt, my chosen costume for the night. “You’re not even wearing a cravat.”

“Oh, do you think I should?” The lights in the main arena darkened. I took a deep breathe, despite such an action no longer being necessary. There was no time for a change at this point, even if I employed my vampiric speed. I looked back over my shoulder, and winked. Time for the show!

The End

Short Story: Soul Sister originally appeared on Tsukiyomi on October 10, 2011.