Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

My Publishing Worlds

Revision, revision, revision

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Back to Lu Chi’s Wen Fu: The Art of Writing
In Chapter VII.  “The Key,” the last three stanzas are referring to searching out the best words and revising.

What wants to continue must not end;
   what has been fully stated is itself a conclusion.

However each sentence branches and spreads,
   it grows from a well-placed phrase.

Restrain verbosity, establish order;
otherwise, further and further revision. (lines 5-10)

The ideas in these stanzas are so important to completing a work.  A writer seeks precision, to make the “well-placed phrase.”  And when it is said well, the reader understands.  The difficulty comes in deciding if what is written met the demand.  I trust my instincts.  I have been working on an anthology (which I have mentioned in prior posts) and have been going through each story. Two stories continue to make me hesitate to include them, so I finally pulled them out of the work.  What is left is strong, but still in need of revision.  And so, I am off to “further and further” revise.

A writer’s platform: A scary propostion

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So I have been working on my “platform” (please grimace while saying this, cringe a little, then reset shoulders more firmly).  I have a Twitter (@LDarbyGibbs) account and an Indie Writer’s account, a Google+ something or other and a Facebook page (which I still have not figured out after three months of ownership.  It didn’t help that it changed format just when I was getting less nervous about what I should do with it.)  But Twitter is less overwhelming by far than any of them.  After all, a writer should be able to write a sentence or two on the fly.

My most difficult problem is friend requests.  I don’t get them often, but when I do, I have no idea how to respond.  Mostly I think, “Why do you want to be my friend?  What about me caught your attention?”  If I can look at their blog, profile or information, I’ll see if we have anything in common, or if I find them interesting.  But I don’t just say, “Sure, join the party.”

Follow me, I’ll follow you:  those just make me crazy.  It seems kind of like little kids collecting stickers.  My daughter, when she was little, loved to collect stickers. She would smile gleefully when she received one.  Stick it to something, didn’t matter what, or give it away to someone she liked just to see them smile, but she never asked about it again or searched out where she had stuck it.  Followers are like that if they are just returning a follow.  Sure, I want followers, but I want to earn them, not buy them.

Writer’s platform just coming into visibility

Where was I:  oh, yes, platform.  Mine is in the just-coming- into-visibility stage.  That is if it were a tangible thing, at this point, you would see a vague outline of wood planks, with darkened circular shapes, probably bolts, notable in pairs at the ends and about halfway along each plank.  I work to build solid stuff, but it’s not finished. So, invisible man kind-of-thing just starting to be made solid appearing, but not yet.  This blog is one of those planks, and it is one of two that appears like you could step on it and not fall through. My book is the other solid looking plank.  And see that one over there, off to the right at the top of this foundation?  That one is the anthology I am working on.  The last short story is getting fleshed out.  Then it is heavy duty revise and edit for the lot of them.  Maybe by late June, early July it will debut.  And one more plank will appear.  A person could lay a towel down and get suntanned perhaps.

Breaking news: Scrapper draft done

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Today I completed my draft of “Scrapper.”  This is one of the key stories in my anthology Gardens in the Cracks.  Now I have to decide which of the others I should redraft.  I am leaning towards the title story, but may go after one of the shorter pieces as I am getting close to the end of the school year, and that is always a busy time for me and my students.  But the point here is:  Scrapper is drafted and in pretty good shape. 

I approached it in a different manner than I usually do. I wrote the beginning 18,000 words, then wrote the end because I just had it all laid out before me ready to churn out.  I normally write from start to the finish, so this was awkward. But I feel it actually came out better because I was writing when I was passionate about the events happening.  It was just that bridging between the two that was the tough part.  However, I had set a level of writing and that forced me to continue at that level.

I write time travel stories

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I like time travel stories because the character that travels in time still has to deal with who he or she is.  In my first novel of the series I am writing, the main character Brent Garrett is impulsive and tends to do what is immediately important to him.  That impulsiveness sets in motion a series of actions that ultimately send him back in time 200 years. But he takes that impulsiveness with him.  Though it is not a fatal flaw, it is a flaw which effects everything he does.  That is what I like about a time travel story, I can work with those distinct qualities of character.  There can be growth and change, epiphany and conflict as the character either becomes aware of that innate flaw or responds to the results of it by adjusting how he or she reacts. In the first book, In Times Passed, Garrett does not come to understand that he is the reason behind his actions, but he does work to make his reactions more productive. (And he does actually come face to face with the person responsible for his troubles, hee, hee). As the series progresses, he does mature, though he is not the main character of each book as different individuals take on the role at center stage.  Students of Jump 1 (In Times Passed) and 2 (No Time Like the Present) are largely focused on Brent Garrett. The second book does contain a different main character, Garrett’s daughter.  She too travels in time and carries her own baggage, initially created by the actions of her father but sustained by her own.

I also enjoy humor, especially in the bantering between characters, and that is a key element in my writing in this series.  People (and for fiction: characters) who truly care about each other have the ability to use language in such a manner that it tips ideas, memory and experience, a repertoire per say of the links between two people, that make for dialogue that shows depth and connection.  I enjoy building characters that connect tightly with other characters and seem to enjoy each other’s company.

Today I published my first ebook

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I got sidetracked by blogging, and I think I let it happen on purpose. Today I uploaded my first book (In Times Passed) to Smashwords.  It was one of the most exciting things I have ever done.  Researching blogging let me settle into the fact that my book was now available.  I have been redrafting it for the last three months with a deadline date I set for August.  I beat that deadline by one day.

I searched for where to publish my ebook, and though I considered B&N and Kindle at Amazon, when I tripped over a reference to Smashwords and checked it out, I felt that I had arrived home.  Each step was scary but easy, as Mark Coker at Smashwords makes it easy.  When I downloaded my book onto my iPhone and flipped through the pages….euphoria.  I ran and showed my daughter, flipping the title page into view, then the table of contents and a few pages of the first chapter.  She said I looked scary and a little weird.  I think I am going to go see if I still look weird to her.