Writerly Ways

And a short one at that so I can get back to nanoing and the fact that my internet is dying oh so slowly dying.

But first - it’s been 20 years since Trials and Tribble-ations how is this even possible??

And can we all just STOP telling someone who's doing it differently than you that they're doing it wrong. Yes your way might work but so does theirs.

I posted this on the Nano forums, my local group and queer SF I posted this in the fantasy forum on Nano but I thought I'd toss it out here too. I've seen people criticize fantasy authors for using real world names for fantasy flora and fauna (e.g. horse, cat, dog, apple etc). How do you feel about it? I'm using different names for the plants that my poison gardener grows and don't feel that uncomfortable with the idea as plant names can change with region let alone country.

But is it off-putting to use horses, deer, cats etc? I know most fantasy authors do and I hear tons of complaining from readers about it. Then again I also hear tons of complaining about 'don't change one thing so it's not quite a dog and give it a different name. Just call it a dog.'

I know you can't satisfy every reader but I was curious how others felt about this.

I haven't checked the forums yet because well points up, internet doesn't want to load nano. My local group all agreed with me that if it's a dog (or a horse or a cat) it should just be called that. (and I was asking this because I've been called Lazy and unimaginative for doing so by certain groups). No one seemed to care much about the plants and I think that's because plant's common names do change within the same language from region to region but if it's a cat in Pittsburgh it's not a floofwassit in Orlando.

On Queer SF most of them also agreed that if it's a dog call it a dog. But then here comes one of them, one I already KNOW is a problem because she's an expert at everything. You know the type. It's Sheldon 2.0. She flat out tells some of the readers that if they can't handle different (and complicated) names that they need to get the hell out of the genre. (and only slightly more politely than that) then goes off on all the different Euro-Indonesian roots words she's used in her books. The moderator very politely admonished her and that set her off how we weren't really doing the genres justice if we backed down to these readers and she wasn't fucking changing for anyone (and those were her words).

Eye rolls. Honestly she does this a lot in the forums (it's one of the reasons I'm not quite as active as I was a year ago. She's always there to be the expert and lead us all on the path. All I've learned from her is to never buy her books. She loves to write the really outre stuff in the first place which I'm not a giant fan of but frankly even if I did, her attitude is so shitty I wouldn't read it anyhow.

So that's my writer's tip for the week. 1. There is more than one right way to do things & 2. Don't be shitty to your readers. If you're dealing with a troll, don't feed them. But telling the regular reader they're wrong or lazy etc you're going to lose them. She definitely lost me.


And since I know you all like these, links for the week (yes all provided by Betty again because she's way more up on this than me!)

Filter words lead to telling not showing I am SO guilty of 'looked' and 'felted.' I'm going to add these to my second draft rewrites using ctrl+F because I KNOW I do it way way WAY too much.

do less achieve more

148 tips from previous nanoes

Understanding inner conflict She said this was very good and she's right.

writing killer suspense Okay technically it's romantic suspense but as Betty said this could be for just about any genre.


Yearly Word count - still way under where I need to be. I wrote 2K today and still going and all of it based on word sprints. My problem isn't a lack of something to write about it's a lack of focus.

74297 / 115000
(64.61%)

Well now I'm pissed. Just lost nearly 1000 words because it didn't save on the flash drive when I moved from the lap top to the desk top and whatever happened when libre office failed to save those words, it also caused Word to crash. That was about 2 hours worth of work and since it's edging in on 1 AM (technically 2 AM as I'm not yet quite adjusted), I'm not likely to recover it tonight. Hope I remember it in the morning.

9929 / 50000
(19.86%)

Nano Snippet “I'm beginning to see the reason to stay on as a guest and not a prisoner,” Camristy leaned in toward Solan conspiratorily. She snorted.

“You have no idea how evil Tenaldi can be?” She beamed.

“Hey, don't give him bad ideas about me.”

“He knows I'm kidding.” Solan patted Tenaldi on the arm

“And you follow up with your giant shovelly hands.” Tenaldi rubbed his arm.

Solan swatted him hard. “Now there's blood on the shovels.”


This is my take on the perpetual nano prompt of a bloody shovel.