Ten Chapters to Go and Thoughts on the Importance of Research, Learning, Open-Mindedness, Communication Skills, Trying New Things, and the Efficacious Talent of Using Brevity in the Titling of Internet Web-Blog Posts.
This is one of those times the little voice in the back of my head is screaming that there is going to be some kind of massive roadblock between me and getting shit done.
Yep, that’s right: I, your humble narrator, author of the much-hoopla’d forthcoming Author’s Edition of They Came in Peace, have reached the last ten chapters and am counting down (counting up?) to the end of the backwards edit. This is all happening on a much faster schedule than I anticipated; I realize I still need to take my Read Something Else brain-cleaner break before doing the final pass…but…
I had hoped to have more writing advice to give out; but the truth is, like I’ve said previously, as important as it is to be constantly honing your writing talent, a subjective journey that never really ends, it is equally important to forge connections.
No matter how good you are, it’s all who you know. And even with who you know, you better bet your fucking ass you’ve got to learn how to market your book.
The hardest part, of course, being how to market it when you have ZERO capital to invest in a marketing campaign.
…which brings us to the topic of this lesson, Acolytes: Research, knowledge, and credibility are essential to writing as they are to anything you approach:
Soon, I’ll start looking into fixing up my SEO, getting some sort of project funding – though God only knows what I could offer to people kicking money my way besides a free copy of a book I don’t know how much it will cost to print – it’s always the printing costs that kill you until you can start rolling out enough copies to negotiate a lower printing price. But if I can figure out what to award or give people when my funding goals are met, it’s going to be a real roll-out, this time.
Writing is a fucking business; and not an easy one, at that. I mean besides the solitude, crippling bouts of self-doubt, the emotional toll that is the creative constipation of writer’s block; I’m talking about the thing every entrepreneur has to face at least once in their lives: the headache of figuring out HOW to run the business.
Which brings us back around to the topic of today’s lesson, dear Acolytes: Research; from fucking book reports to any genre of writing, research is key. It’s not just about getting your facts straight, it’s about creating background information you can use for worldbuilding or character development. It’s about understanding things, like how the electromagnetic spectrum works, how “dark matter” and “dark energy” are just placeholder terms for something science can explain in mathematical theory, but not in principle, and even if it were real it doesn’t interact in any way with normal matter or energy, and so it is not an actual thing you can use as a Technical Workaround, MacGuffin or Plot Device, not using technobabble but actual technological facts and expanding on existing theorem to make your thing do the thing you want; not often do creators like those behind Star Trek’s “Warp Drive” lead to scientists reverse-engineering the fiction into science. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting on my hoverboard, lightsaber and sonic screwdriver for a while.
Okay; tangenital rant over. Back to research:
Some of the research I did for They Came in Peace was a very deep dive: I even took some questionable actions to communicate online to people that some other people would consider persons of interest, high-value targets, and terrorists…mind you, I’ve heard BLM referred to as a terrorist organization by white racist swine, so, maybe the word “terrorism” has lost its teeth. Especially when you consider how many so called terror groups are actually people fighting for their own survival (The Ukraine, Palestine,) against forces set for their complete genocide (Russia, “Israel,” the Ignited States.) I can neither condone nor condemn the actions of anyone who feels violent resistance is their last, best hope at life. I do, however, strongly condemn the truly radicalized extremist groups, like Daesh, Boko Haram, the Taliban, the Oath Keepers, Make America Great Again, and the Proud Boys.
I don’t know the origin of the aphorism that One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter, but I certainly found that to be the case while I was doing research into the psyche of revolutionaries and so-called terrorist groups. The vast majority of the people I did speak to directly weren’t extremists, militants, religious fanatics, or even political idealists; they were ordinary people who were so disenfranchised by the societies they lived in that they felt there was no other option if they wanted to survive. That sounds like a lot of people I know in the 2SLGBTQIA++, working poor and subsistence-living communities. Welcome to End-Stage Capitalism. To learn how it got so bad, Sweet Acolytes O’ Mine, research Ronald Reagan, and Trickle-Down Economics. Then sedate yourself until the urge to kill dies down.
Meandering back into researching real-world rebel terrorists, finding out what made people radicalized was essential to writing They Came in Peace. I don’t think the personal journey of the central protagonist, Simon Petrovych, would have been half as believable if I hadn’t spoken to the people I did, and studied the histories of the regions that I did.
Am I an expert on Middle-East or Eastern European politics and geopolitical terrorism? I doubt it; but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a better handle on the situation than Traitor-in-Chief Agent Krasnov. Low bar, I know, but one I can confidently clear.
Research is also learning. About the world, about the sciences, the arts, history, and your fellow Human Beings. Catching the “Woke Mind Virus” requires having a mind to begin with; and being “Woke” just means giving a fuck about other people. And every time you research something, every time you learn something, it expands your mind just that much more. Only stupid people think learning is stupid; and only stupid people boast about how smart they are. The greatest weapon in the world is knowledge; which is why despots always destroy the sciences, the schools and the libraries first.
Even if you decide to study something completely unrelated to writing, it will refine your ability to write. I picked up the guitar in August of last year, and I’m starting to get not that bad. I’ve also been cosplaying since my twenties, and believe me, when you’re building entire characters, creatures or monsters from scratch, it will teach you a lot about character design; like the impracticality of a Stormtrooper helmet versus the challenges of a Mando bucket, or why building your Xenomorph out of fiberglass resin is a bad idea, but a good one if you’re making a Vorlon. And don’t get me started on figuring out how to build a Cyberman; at least a Dalek is mainly hardware and plumbing supplies. Original character creations are even more challenging.
The point is, ultimately your writing is only as good as your knowledge base. (see “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance, J.) And your knowledge base is, ultimately, what gives your writing credibility, teeth, believability.
You also shouldn’t half-ass the research; don’t stop at a few articles or a few websites; dig deeper. Talk to people involved. Plenty of places have emails and will answer any questions you have.
Also, don’t research by the seat of your pants: It’s all right in the planning stages or while writing an outline to research, but you don’t want to be researching how the magnetosphere works so you can use it as an exploit in one of your combat scenes, because you’ll be ripped right out of the moment and it’s as bad as just quitting mid-wank to go watch a documentary on ferns instead of whatever you were working out to on PornHub.
It’s always best to research everything in advance; figure out what questions you want to ask when it comes time to talk to the Actual People, because whatever you’re researching, at some point you want to talk to someone in the field; be it particle physics, medicine, forensics, music, carpentry, geologists and geophysicists…whatever you have to look up, make sure down the road you’re ready to ask someone some questions.
Huh; I guess it really is all about who you know.
So, get out there, Acolytes; get to know some people; learn some things; be smart and get clever.
Maybe you’ll have more success at this whole writing-for-a-living thing than me.
Those who can’t teach, I guess…
