Real World Magic

So much research went into The Seer, from weapons to central heating, from shoe-making to the arcana of various magic systems.

Magic. Some people will tell you that we don't have magic here, in this world, the one in which my book is published, the one with lattes and doctor appointments. But let me tell you what I saw the other day.

I'm at my doctor's office, at lunchtime, finishing up an appointment. I show off my ARC -- that's the Advance Reader Copy, also known as an uncorrected proof -- to a woman behind the reception desk. Let's call her Ann.

Ann is delighted. She says she must, right this moment, now that it's her lunch break, start my book. I have to take my ARC with me, so I direct her to my publisher's website where the first ten chapters are available for free. She starts reading on her computer, as I stand there.

She laughs. I'm hoping that's a good thing, since it's not exactly comedy, chapter one. She glances at me, then back to the book.

"I like this," she says.

"I'm glad," I answer. I'm a little stunned at this suddenness, this enthusiasm, but very pleased. I'm a writer, of course I'm pleased. I gather my things to go.

"Oh," she breathes, reading on. "Just my kind of book!" Again, she sends a grinning look my way.

"Thanks," I say.

I turn to leave. I pause. I turn back.

She's still reading.

I've never seen this before, a near-stranger reading my book with this immediacy and gusto. Surely, I think to myself, she'd rather read it without someone watching her, let alone the author. I mutter something polite, something about leaving, hoping she'll say goodbye or wave or some other indicator that she's done with me.

Aloud she wonders what will happen next.

A reader wants to know what will happen next. These are the words writers live for.

Right in front of me, my world and characters are taking shape in the mind and heart of another human being. There is no sensible reason for me to stay here and watch, but I can't seem to make my feet move.

Minutes pass.

More minutes pass.

"Well," I say. "Guess I'd better go."

She cackles at some action in the story. My story. The one I wrote.

"Yes, I'll just --" I say, as if I'm just coming to this idea. I'll just what? "-- just get on with the day," My words are undercut by how stationary I seem to be.

See, she's reading. My book.

I feel foolish, standing there, but also I feel something else I can't quite name. In another moment it comes to me: I am awestruck. Spellbound. I want to pull out my phone and take a picture to mark this moment, but of course I don't, because it would break the spell.

When at last I summon the will to leave, it's been over fifteen minutes of me standing there, watching Ann -- still smiling and chuckling -- read my book. This is a magic I have never before had the privilege to witness, to see a new reader step into my world.

I give myself another moment to take it in. This moment. This magic.

Finally I go to the door, my eyes misty and my smile wide. I glance back before I leave.

She doesn't look up.

She's reading.

Manuscript Launched

I've just sent back the manuscript for The Seer, after reviewing all 695 pages of edits and questions.

Twice.

I've had my works edited for publication before, but that experience was nothing like this - not this large a work, nor reviewed in this level of detail. It arrived bristling with post-its, issues I needed to resolve with minimal changes. I had never seen anything like it, and it turned out I had no idea what I was in for.

Sure, going over every word and note was hard. At times wrenching. I laughed. I ranted. (No, not at my editors. If there was any target, it was me). Sometimes the process was really unpleasant. Sometimes it was exhilarating.

And yes, I'm very glad to be done. But here's the thing I didn't expected to be telling you now:

It was an amazing experience. I'm a better writer now than I was three weeks ago.

Why? Line by line, I got to see my work through my editors' eyes. I saw my mistakes highlighted. Some issues that I thought were settled I had to readdress, like why some people's titles are capitalized where others aren't. I spent a lot of time with the Chicago Manual of Style, re-reading other fantasy authors, discussing the nuances of language with others similarly obsessed. I found answers. I learned.

It was a crash course in what's good and what's weak in my writing, applied by the deft (and merciless) hands of two professional editors, both of whom want the same thing I do, for the novel to be the best it can possibly be. No one was concerned about my feelings at this point, nor should they have been; this was where all our non-trivial efforts came together to produce one final thing:

The story.

Prior to this, I would have thought this part of the process would at best teach me about narrative and flow. Commas maybe. Continuity, perhaps. But no - it was far more than that. This process gave me a view onto my novel that I had never had before. It underscored for me the point of all those words: to build a captivating world, characters who come alive, action that's vivid and meaningful.

Of course the work remains imperfect. I managed to accept that no matter how many times I went through it, mistakes were going to slip by. There is no absolute control over a work of this size.

Nor, perhaps, does there need to be. Because the important thing, again, is the story.

When I shipped the book back to the publisher, I felt the sorrow and elation of something ending and another thing beginning. It's out of my hands, now. I've done everything I know how to do to make the story ring like a bell.

Not quite mine any more, this world. Soon it will belong to my readers.

That's going to be a fine day.

Launched.

Chapter one is here.

The Seer: Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I've been waiting until today to tell you what happened two weeks ago. Before I do that, let's back up a bit.

Early last year Baen Books told me that, yes, they were interested in my novel, The Seer, but that they wanted changes. Big changes. In a long conversation, they outlined the revisions they wanted. Totally understand, they said, if you'd rather not.

Thing was, they were right. The editors had, essentially, called me out on all my short-cuts, weak characterizations, arcs that needed to go farther, an ending that needed more closure.

Yeah, I said: count me in. I'm in. All in.

Then I went to work. The revisions they wanted were huge -- plot-changing, character wrenching -- and in many cases they did not play nicely with each other. I realized that I needed to find new ways to tell a story that was fast becoming more complicated than anything I had laid hands on before. Bluntly, this story was going to require a better writer than I was to finish it. Somehow, I had to become that better writer.

I wish I could tell you it all blossomed in magic born of necessity, and there were some rare times when the words just flowed and it felt like some kind of magic, but most of the time it was me just reviewing plot-lines, checking maps, consulting my experts, and putting one finger in front of the other to write what too often felt like the clumsiest prose I'd ever fashioned.

I took out a lot of words. All the way through and in the final rewrites. My outtakes file is about half the size of the final manuscript, and that isn't short. (Though, I hasten to add, shorter than Game of Thrones. Ha!)

But most of the time what got me through the current scene or chapter was something akin to terror: I had signed a contract -- I had taken real money -- I had a deadline. Sure, I could quit, but then I'd have to flee the country and live in shame under an assumed name for the rest of my life.

There were moments where that seemed the better option.

I lined up some powerful allies. First readers. Friends. Experts. Advisers. My Muse. My Reader Advocate. (I'll explain later.) I warned them all that there would be times when I would loose faith in my ability, and that their job was to get me to the finish line. And they did. Wow, did they. More on that in another post.

As a writer I took a lot of risks with this book, with the story-line, characters, tensions, symbol choices, and so on -- things I hope my reader never notices consciously. I had no idea if the publisher would like what I'd done.

Sometimes I would lie there trying to sleep and think about all the risky things I'd done that they could object to, all the strange twists and turns I'd made, all the ways in which I'd incorporated the changes they wanted, but gone a fair bit beyond what might have been enough, all in order to tell the story that needed to be told.

In the last two months before the deadline, it came to me -- in my gut, not intellectually -- that I had to write the story the best I possibly could -- so that, if the publisher did not like it after all, I would know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it wasn't because I'd held back.

I didn't hold back.

Then, the last day of March -- two weeks ago -- I shipped it. That's what I wanted to tell you.

I was surprisingly calm about it. I had, after all, given it everything I had. If it wasn't good enough, well, so be it; I knew I hadn't taken any shortcuts.

Today my editor at Baen wrote me back. He said he'd finished the book. The fixes he wants are minor.

He called it wonderful. He called it excellent. He said I'd made all the changes he'd hoped for and more. He said he was proud to be publishing it.

Me, too. Very much so. The Seer is scheduled to hit ink in spring of 2016.

These Newfangled Devices

I remember wrist phones. They were all the rage in science fiction a few decades back, like flying cars and moon bases. Coming soon to a world near you.

I'm keen on user experience issues too. While reading Nielsen Norman Group's review of Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch I have to laugh: "Better not stand next to a Gear user if you don't want a punch in the nose."

Meaning that moving the wrist phone to signal you want an app to launch -- otherwise known as "gesture interface" -- is still a touch buggy.

After I finish laughing, I consider. As a science fiction writer, it's my business to predict the future. Where will this lead? "Swipe ambiguity," as it's called, is going to be a problem for a while, but not forever. Designers are going to incorporate increasingly natural (and custom) gestures as inputs to our various new-fangled devices.

You can argue that our bodies are already our essential interface, but fingers on keyboards are pretty far from what might be considered natural input. What might be more innate?

Speech, of course. Voice recognition that works, reliably. Speak your desires and the computer does it.

What else?

How about you wave your right index finger in the air and chant "return the map!" and your navigation system launches? Or you start walking and your ped-metrics tracker starts up? Or you start humming and music plays, or you start dancing and your dance track launches? Right now your phone can't tell that you're dancing, but that day is coming. Body-reading computers are not far away.

But what about your mind?

Let's say you want to read your email. Take a moment and think about how that feels, right before you move your mouse to open your email. That feeling has a subtle but measurable physical component, and while our home computers and cell phones can't yet detect it, that day, too, is coming.

Power's in the wrist

That is, when you only want to read your email, before you've explicitly indicated anything, your computer will know. Maybe even before you do.

Interesting times in our near futures, my friends.  Hang on to your hat.

Which will probably launch the weather app.