We had a little visitor this weekend who left a gift for my mother and I: a head cold. I’m well on the mend, though, after spending a day lazing about with a sore throat and a mild fever. However, the resultant lack of energy means I haven’t done much writing this week. And, I’m not going to get a terrible lot done the rest of the week due to other commitments. But, I am not worried overmuch about it. Why? Because, years ago, I learned that the absolute worst trap I can fall into is attempting to power through.

Some writers — and I must include myself in this — feel it necessary to meet a deadline; even just a deadline we set for ourselves. I generally like to get at least five pages per project added each week. And, I generally meet, if not exceed, this goal. However, on weeks where real life commitments or illness prevent me from hitting my target, I’ve learned to relax a bit instead of trying to power through late in the week or forcing myself to double-up the next week. The few times I have tried either strategy my writing has been mediocre, if not regrettably poor, in quality.

Many people who do not write tend to think that writing is something you can do any time and that it requires little energy. Some new writers also believe these things and fall into the trap of powering through a rough time or over-committing themselves. Writing may not be a physically demanding pursuit like carpentry or sports but it does require a tremendous amount of energy. That energy may be mostly mental but it does not matter to the body. Energy expended thinking and analyzing is no different, on a bio-chemical level, than energy spent walking. True, it does not raise your metabolism or get you into shape, but it is energy spent that is then unavailable for other pursuits.

When you are not feeling well, your body needs energy to fight off the infection as well as to maintain itself. Since writing involves a high amount of thinking and analyzing and your body, when ill, prioritizes such higher-function tasks as secondary to survival, that means you have less energy to devote to writing when ill and you should not power through just because writing involves sitting in front of a computer and pushing some keys.

I expect that tomorrow I will be back to form and will probably get some writing done. I may even hit my five-page-per-project goal. However, I’m not going to beat myself up if I do not. If I can get three pages per project tomorrow, I’ll be happy. I do have another commitment to meet that requires me to travel out of town next week so my schedule may be thrown off then as well (though I do plan to take my laptop with me).

For now, I’m going to go get some more rest. I want to be at my best next week, after all.

I am a gamer. More than that, I am the kind of gamer who, if I get caught up in the story of a game, will play until ridiculous hours if I don’t have some urgent responsibility weighing down on me. When I was working full-time, I could usually get myself into bed by midnight at the latest and be up at 6:30 the next morning. But now that I am not working full-time (though I’m job-hunting), I find my sleeping schedule getting more and more erratic. If I’m not up until 3 am writing, I’m playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft, or I’m reading. That means I may not wake up until 9 am which throws my whole morning off.

And yet, despite that, I’m still generally able to hit my daily and weekly goals. Even this week, when I didn’t get much work done on Monday or Tuesday due to various Real Life Issues, I’m still easily on track. That is partly because I did a lot of work this weekend and partly because I’m so caught up in the events of Midnight of Lanar’ya that even 48 hours off doesn’t throw me into a spiral of confusion.

Another reason I’m able to keep pace with all of my projects and still have time to play World of Warcraft and Star Wars is because I am a relentless and religious scheduler. I’ve found that appointing each task its proper “time of day” helps me keep my life balanced. Here’s how things normally work out on a day for me:

Morning — Wake up, check email, check the news
Noontime — Quick lunch. Possibly work out a bit (go for a walk)
Early Afternoon — Raid in WoW if needed or do dailies
Mid Afternoon — Work on Midnight of Lanar’ya
Early Evening — Check the news and work on websites
Mid Evening — Do WoW dailies or play Star Wars while working on Midnight of Lanar’ya
Late Evening — Play Star Wars
Night — Go to sleep at some point

When I was working full time, my schedule looked more like this (still balanced though!)

6:45 am — Wake up, get dressed, go catch the bus
8:00 am — Get to the office and start updates while checking my work email and the news
8:30 am – Noon — Work!
Noon – 2 pm — Lunch break. Eat, play WoW, write.
2 pm – 5:30 pm — Work!
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm — Walking home
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm — Cook and eat supper. Write.
7:30 pm – 10:30 pm — Play WoW (raiding, dailies, dungeons).
10:30 pm – 11:00 pm — Write.
11:00 pm — Shower and bed.

On weekends, my schedule now is pretty much the same. So, if you’re struggling to hit your goals, do what I did. Sit down and think about what you need to get done in life and appoint each time of day its proper task. You can do it by time of day (as I do at the moment) or by hour (as I used to do when I had a full-time job). Then stick to it! After a week, you’ll find that the habit becomes so strong, you don’t need to think about it too much.

And now, it’s almost lunch time for me so off to grab something light and then get back to work.

Today I hit the 50% mark on Midnight of Lanar’ya. I’ve just wrapped up several pivotal scenes for the first major climax and am working on the interlude sections between Peak One and the climb to Peak Two (other writers will know what I mean). So, to celebrate hitting that milestone, I thought I’d make a post about why I tend to avoid writing human characters in my fantasy fiction.

Several of my friends have wondered why I tend to have my main characters be elves instead of humans. It’s not just because I think Drizzt Do’urden is awesome or because I like pointy ears. I tend to write from an elven (or dwarven) perspective because my stories are from an outsider’s point of view. In Lanar’ya, the major race of the central civilization is human. Elves keep to themselves (as do dwarves) but relations between the races is peaceful and amicable. The main character in the books is an elven commander. The other commanders are all human. The elf, Jarl, will outlive them by a long margin. It gives him a different perspective on things. He has to deal, quite frequently, with the death of friends to old age while he is still in his prime. Not only that, but his point of view allows me to build a conspiracy and a mystery that spans decades instead of a few years. It makes the whole story more believable to have it told from an elven perspective.

Human characters in fantasy fiction rarely have the same outsider feel to them. As humans ourselves, we feel like we should innately understand another human character, even one who can cast spells. So, when we look through their eyes, we’ll see things in a closer light. We’ll tend to identify with them more and wonder why they aren’t more like we are. But elves (or dwarves or ogres or orcs or whatever) allow us to look through their eyes while accepting a good many more dissimilarities than a human character would.

That’s not to say I won’t write a story with human characters. One of the series I’m planning out for my next major project will have several trilogies written with a human-only cast. However, I do tend to find it easier to write about a human society from an outside perspective. Hence my choice of primarily elven (or other demi-human) characters.

Also: elves are cool.

I once heard that the average fiction writer does well to add two pages to their work per day. In the past week, I’ve averaged about six pages per day on Midnight of Lanar’ya. And, let me tell you, it’s exhausting. I’m charged by it but, at the same time, my brain is fried. Working over in my “Super Secret Secure Location” (aka “the barn”) helps a lot because there are no distractions (and also no toilets which forces me to walk back and forth between the House and the Barn several times, but it’s still pretty tiring.

I’ve noticed a distinct trend in my writing. I’ll generally average about two pages per day but then, I’ll hit a patch where I may crank out upwards of ten pages per day for a week or two. Then, I’ll crash back down to less than a page per day for a few days only to pull back up to about three or four pages per day for a few months.

One thing I’ve found that helps me deal with the exhaustion is to write more on a different project. At any given time, I might be working on three novels — only one “actively” and the other two piecemeal. Another thing I do to relax my mind a bit is to play World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic. Playing another story — one I don’t have to write or think about much — is actually quite relaxing. I enjoy reading as well. It’s nice and quiet out here at the End of the World so, some days, when I’m especially worn out from writing, I’ll grab a book and sit on the porch reading for several hours.

The one thing I’ve found that is the worst for me to do when I’m tired is to try to “power through” and keep a per-day quota. When I first started the Fall of the Lanarian Empire series, I did set a per-day quota of at least two pages for myself. Now, I’m content to set a per-week quota of three pages. I easily pass it and that allows me to relax a bit and give myself a bit of a break now and again. I’ve found that I’m my own harshest task-master so being reasonable with myself allows me to meet my goals without feeling guilty on the days when I just need to chill a bit.

And now, since I’ve added seven pages today, I am going to relax and play some Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have a Jedi Knight that I’m leveling as a tank and the game is just amazing. In some ways, it’s better than World of Warcraft (though World of Warcraft will always be my first love since that’s where most of my friends are). Therefore, good night and may the Force be with you!

Every good story contains a bit of a mystery. Some revolve around the mystery — hence the Mystery genre. Others have a mystery that is a central part of the story but the story itself does not revolve around it. In the Mystery genre, clues are often given to figure out who was behind the event in question. In other genres, some clues may be given but sometimes, no clue is given. Sometimes there are red herrings and sometimes there are no herrings whatsoever.

In the Fall of the Lanarian Empire series, there are several mysteries for the reader to unravel. Some are obvious. But some are not. Some are intentionally let sans clue because the reader should be focused more on the moment before him than the past or the future.

I’ve never really liked the Mystery genre. Generally, it’s too…formulaic. That’s not to say that Mystery writers lack creativity. They are very creative! However, most Mystery-specific stuff involves a high element of danger as the main character tries to unravel the tangled threads. Someone dies/disappears/steals a bunch of money and the central character gets caught up in the events and is trying to keep himself and his comrades alive while he figures out the whodunit. Many mysteries, like many romance novels, are so similar that if you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.

So, why am I putting a mystery into the Fall of the Lanarian Empire series? Because every good story has a good mystery — a puzzle for the reader to try to figure out until the moment of the great unveiling. I’m currently building up to one of the major climactic points of the series and I’m just as excited as I hope my readers will be about what is about to happen. I’ve been planning this scene ever since I started writing Twilight of Lanar’ya and it’s really cool to finally be at the point of where it’s about to be written into the story. I’ve had several set-backs with Midnight of Lanar’ya, including one point where I had to scrap what I had and start over again from the beginning. And now, it’s all fallen into place. Once I’m over this hump, the first major climax is done and it’s just time to build up for the next.

Anyhow, I’m going to get back to writing now. Enough dithering. Let’s get that scene in the bag!

Whew! I just finished registering the copyright of Twilight of Lanar’ya with the US Copyright office. I did it online to save myself some money and hassle. However, I spent a good hour trying to figure out how to upload the manuscript before I found out that you deposit the copy after you’ve paid the fee. I sure wish that had been in the FAQ. I would have saved myself a near nervous breakdown and an hour of wasted time.

I also received the first mock-up of the cover for Twilight of Lanar’ya today. Keary Taylor is doing the cover art for me and, I must say, she is quite good. I’m very impressed by what she sent me today. Many thanks to my friend Daniel Kaine for recommending her.

Some may wonder why I bothered with registering the copyright for my book. After all, it’s not like anyone’s going to steal it, right? While it is true that the likelihood of my work being claimed by someone else is low, I registered the copyright for my own protection and I recommend that others do the same. The way I see it is like this: suppose that I release my novel sans copyright registration. A few months later, someone at a TV studio reads it and thinks “Hm, that’d made a good TV series.” They go and check to see if the copyright is registered and find that no, it’s not. They can then register the copyright themselves. I happen to be flipping through the channels a year later and there is my story being played out on the screen. I can try to fight them in court but without the registration myself, it’s going to be an uphill battle.

So, I save myself the hassle and register the copyright and deposit the manuscript before I publish. That way, if someone does decide they want to write a screen play or turn it into a TV series, they have to come to me to get the rights to it. I’m fairly liberal about fair use and will be fine with people quoting from the book. I’m not going to sue everyone who puts three words together the same way I did. However, if someone else wants to profit from my work, I want them to have to share with me. I spent six months writing the thing, after all. I spent three months before that outlining and refining it. I’ve spent another three months working on the sequel. So, if someone else wants a cut of my work, they need to pay the piper. If someone else just wants to quote a passage for a review, that’s fair use and I’m not going to start issuing take down notices. Non-profit use I’m fairly cool with. Commercial use, on the other hand…

Anyhow, I’m going to get back to work on Midnight of Lanar’ya now. I’d love to be able to have it finished within the next month or so and ready for release this summer.