War Journal 55: The All’s Well

I see ya’ll looking at me for an update. Sorry, I get distrac… is that second dude wearing a du-rag?

Hey guys,

I know some of you have been in the trenches without an update. This season’s been hectic. On top of trying to wage war with the slushpiles around the world, I’ve been knee deep in slush as associate editor for UFO 2. Rather than not give each and every submission a thorough review for merit, I’ve kind of dropped things like finishing the novel and having fun… who needs that stuff? Besides, maybe fun is one of those things that kill writer careers. I can’t see those dark, morose writers every one loves as the cat’s meow at a house party. But who knows… maybe Edgar Allan Poe invented quarters. I can see him in a smoky bar telling Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “One more round!” til the dude screams “Nevermore!”

But I digress. I’m still around, writing in fragments at best. Fragments like these. Stay tuned, gang!

Help UFO2!

The Unidentified Funny Objects Kickstarter is in its last 40 hours and it needs your help to get that last little push it needs. There’s literally nothing else out there dedicated to publishing funny, absurd, satirical and otherwise humorous speculative fiction. It’s a unicorn, people… and how can we not feed a unicorn?

You writers out there: the money goes to buy more stories, possibly your story! Readers out there: the money provides for book design, cover art and extra content. Check out the web stories from the UFO 1 anthology, available to view for free because of last year’s generous donations.

When you consider how a 15 dollar donation will net you both the UFO1 and upcoming UFO2 e-books or a 20 dollar donation will land you the UFO2 ebook and trade paperbook, most of the pledge levels give back something worthwhile. If you haven’t given anything yet, please consider it.

Come here to donate to a fun cause!

Creative Combat Arms: Your Writing Technique

You guys know how I am, I typically go against the grain of all the standard writing advice out there, my lone voice of dissent whispering “writer beware”.  It’s not that I don’t heed advice or think it’s all bad; I just don’t think it’s comprehensive enough generally.  Plus there are pitfalls to following advice headlong.  The war on was has maimed countless innocent sentences…

Unlike most of my advice columns this time, I’m actually parroting advice.  I found it to be one of the best nuggets of wisdom available for free out here in these webz, and it bears repeating.  The advice comes from Bruce Holland Rogers in a Flash Fiction Online column called Collaborating with MICE: Using Theory as a Creative Partner.  In the column, Bruce Holland Rogers talks about both the excitement and trepidation of learning new techniques to apply, and how he would sometimes feel overwhelmed by all there is to know.  It’s something I can agree with… there’s reams and sheafs and binders of writing tips, techniques and tools to employ to bring power to your prose.  How do you manage all those writerly tricks, sort them, and know when and how to apply them when you’re writing a story?

Simple: you don’t.  A writer builds these things slowly into their own writing nature as they continue to write more and more.  Granted, sometimes you may have all the theory in place before you start writing, the POV, the tense, the character arc, etc.  It happened to me with Past Tense.  Sometimes theory’s nowhere to be found; perhaps you just have a solitary idea or just a phrase that you want to build a story around.  Whether your theory’s all worked out or you’re just pantsing through this time, it’s important to not get hamstrung while you’re writing thinking about whether or not you’re applying the right techniques at the right time.  That’s what your editorial eye is for, after you’ve written your draft.  See what works and what doesn’t, if the theories and techniques you’ve put into your current draft meet reader expectation or if there are shortfalls and opportunities to increase emotional impact.

What I’m saying is unless those inspiration sparks hit you while you’re writing, don’t worry about all this stuff in the middle of the writing process.  It’ll make for a long, bumpy road to get that draft finished.  And when you finish you’re gonna do an editorial review anyway.

When in doubt, listen to my man.  Don’t sweat the technique.

War Journal 54: Shank

A whole new meaning to blowing up the spot.

I was away for the past couple days, sent on a high priority mission to Forward Operating Base Shank.  The mission on FOB Shank was simple, deliver a preconfigured laptop to a waiting, eager customer.

What I didn’t know before I got there was Shank is battle-scarred.  It is unequivocally the most attacked base in Afghanistan.  At my home station, I can scarcely find a bunker.  At Shank they literally have bunkers every 15 feet.  The day I arrived we got hit with mortar rounds around dinner time.  I’m a little freaked out but not much, as I’ve been through several singular attacks.  I go to the chow hall and I’m passing bunker after bunker filled with people huddled inside.  The chow hall has several bunkers ringing it, and all of them were full to bursting with people inside eating from trays they had picked up and taken with them.  That’s the mark of people who are used to more than one coming down; they were prepped for a rain of hellfire to rival the Apocalypse.

Now, I’m more than freaked out.

The next day we get hit with another attack, this time in the morning.  The All Clear siren sounds shortly after lunch so I go with the customers I came out to support.  Since the attack is fresh on everyone’s minds, one of the guys casually gets me up to speed on Ol’ FOB Shank.  That’s when I find out about that little tidbit that it’s the most hit base in Afghanistan, like it’s some sort of practice range for the Taliban to get their aim right before traveling to more lucrative bases.  Last year Shank got 211 documented attacks.  These aren’t 211 individual mortars or rockets, but attacks of several mortars and rockets.  And these are the documented ones… they don’t document certain attacks, like the mortars that don’t explode but land inertly to crush whatever it fell on or the attacks where the aim was bad and didn’t quite make the base.  I don’t know how many of those kind they had, but I imagine they have the highest seeing that practice makes perfect and Shank is apparently the place to practice.

Then the guy talks about how that doesn’t faze him.  No, what scares him is when the insurgents enlist the kids from the local villages to come to the fenceline and get the concertina wire.  So the kids come, with little hands and little cutters and take away the base’s razor wire.  Then industrious adults jump the fence.  This happens there.

By this time I halfway expected a scene out of Apocalypse Now.  “Why does this base get hit so much?  Who’s in charge here?” I’ll ask.  And they’ll look at me with that thousand yard stare and say “Ain’t you?”

A few hours later, we got hit with another attack.  This time, I didn’t fuck around.  There was a bunker right outside my tent, but then again there’s a bunker right outside everyone’s tent… and I hit that bunker quick.  Hunkered under it’s concrete walls, the ghostly silhouettes of two dozen others lining either side of me, I looked past them all as the dying light of day cooled to blue and waited for the All Clear.  That’s how I spent sunset at Shank.

I left as early as I could the next day.  But at least I got the mission done, right?  Turns out the customer out there in Shank didn’t need or want a laptop.  No, there was a network problem, one the network team was already aware of and handling before I even left.  The customer’s original system came online the second day I was there, without me laying a finger on it.  I wound up bringing everything I took with me out there back with me.

If you need a poster boy to trumpet the wonders of communication in an organization, I’m your huckleberry.

NOTE: you can directly support an almost bombed out, starving artist by picking up my novelette, Dialogues with Talking Heads.  Even if you check it out for free, you support a brother.  Also be aware that the Kickstarter for the UFO 2 Anthology is getting close to an end and needs all the help we can give it.  And if your dollars are stretched thin these days (who’s aren’t right?) then definitely kick in for UFO 2 before you check out my novelette… it’s only there for a limited time and the world NEEDS more funny.  Trust me on that.