World Building - the kaleidoscope view

Recently I saw a facebook post from a New Zealand Spec fiction writer commenting on the presence of the NZ landscape in many NZ Spec fic writers' work, and I had to agree with it, from my own experience. But I would also have to add that the landscape is not necessarily taken holus bolus into my own writing - though I cannot say if this is true for other writers.

In my case, I usually know which particular landscape has suggested the setting for a particular story, but that doesn't mean that my final setting ends up being exactly like that. More that some feature of that part of the country has set off an idea for my world's landscape - and that feature may only be how that land makes me feel.

An example is for my first, as yet unpublished novel "Hathe", the opening sections of which are set in a high plateau wilderness of the planet Hathe - and that setting comes straight from the North Island central plateau country. I spent my teenage years in Taupo and have driven the Desert Road many times. There is a special feel to that part of the country - untameable, open, big enough to hold all your dreams, and never quite safe.

But this is where the kaleidoscope bit comes in. Just as light enters one end of a kaleiodoscope, is refracted, bent, split into it's various components, and comes out the other end in an unending array of beautiful, colourful patterns, so do the images and feelings that suggest a given setting in a story. The high plateau country of Hathe is not the Desert Road. It's sort of like it, the vegetation of my is principally grasses with some shrubs, but it's bigger, colder, wilder, more grassy - it's Hathian, not kiwi, in other words. This setting was suggested by the Desert Road, but it was also based on a dream I had one morning, and on many other things that came along while I was writing.

That is true of all my world building. I know where it starts, but that doesn't mean it ends up where I expected it to. Worlds, like characters, take on a life of their own, and become their own places.

How else can they become real?

My Science Fiction Blog

I am revitalising this blog, and reclaiming it for my science fiction works. From now on, this blog will refer to only science fiction or other speculative fiction works. This is my latest attempt to bring some order to  my social media sites, and hopefully will stop the confusion that results from the marked difference in genre's that I write. There is a logic to it, but I understand that often it's only who can see it.

For my NZ historical romances, please go to my other website for Mary Brock Jones

For the SF works, I'm so please to announce the publication of the  Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction II anthology, which includes my story "Hunting Ythan". This is an anthology made up entirely of NZ based writers, so I was very thrilled to be included in it.

To buy - use the link on the side panel. Available as paper back and ebook.

website - marybrockjones.com

I have my very own website - go to http://marybrockjones.com/ for a look see.
There are still a few things to organise on it, and once they are done and I learn how to run it, I will migrate my blog over there. It was created by my very clever son who, luckily for me,  has a web site management  business:  Your Turn, 
      I have decided to use Mary Brock Jones as my pen name for all my writing, both SF and historical romance. Mainly because it is more likely to bring up me on a google search than if I use Mary Jones - not the most unusual name in the world, after all. It sounds pretty good too.

Publishing

I now have an Editor and a date for delivery of the final manuscript for my NZ Historical with Escape Publishing. So that sounds very official. It's all both very scary and very exciting. They are only a new imprint of Harlequin Australia, but I've read some of the titles they have put out so far, and they really are good. Try "Unforgettable" by Elise K Ackers. Thoroughly enjoyable, and a bit different. Both main characters work on a building site, a very different setting for a romance. But it was completely credible, the author obviously knows her stuff, and the story was great.
      I am also in the process of setting up a new website, and once completed will shift my blog over there. Full details to follow.

A Yes from Harlequin Escape

This year, I've had the greatest Christmas present ever for a writer - the wonderful Kate Cuthbert of Harlequin Escape Publishing has said "Yes" to my submission. It's for the book that co-won the People's Choice Award  in the Romance Writers of New Zealand's Clendon Award 2012, an historical romance set in the days of the Otago gold rush.
All very exciting, and so great after the years of trying. Getting a short story "Yes" is pretty amazing, but getting one for a whole book, now that's something else.
Publishing date unknown yet, and I have to admit to being a bit scared about what happens next. It's all a bit of an unknown process, even though I've had many others tell me of their experiences. But doing it yourself, mmmm. And a big shout out of thanks to all who have helped me on this amazing journey: the other writers of RWNZ and SpecFic NZ, my family for their endless tolerance, and to Massey University's creative writing papers' lecturers and tutors. Their paper on script writing in particular, taught by Stuart Hoar, was great for someone writing genre fiction. 
So here's to 2013, the year of Mary Brock Jones, author.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

A belated Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone in the blogosphere. I am slowly emerging from the annual orgy of too much work, too much food, and too much cooking. Plus all the lovely bits, like lots of family and lovely pressies. I do love buying for the people I love  - or I would if they gave me any idea what they wanted somewhat earlier than the weekend before Christmas. Thankfully the shops now run lots of last minute pressie sales  - to wet your appetite for the boxing day post Christmas sales, I guess.
     This year I basically cooked two Christmas dinners - one on the Sunday before, for the son and daughter-in-law who were going to her family for the big day, and a second for the extended family on the big day. so I am very definitely over cooking for the rest of the summer. But both were lovely days. We either had all the family here, or talked to them by Skype on the day, including my son overseas (a loooooong way away), and my sisters overseas. Yay for Skype. Not quite the same as being there, but watching my sister talking to me while trying to control a 5 yr old  grandson was just like having her here.
     Christmas - it might bring out the bah humbug in me during the December silly season before hand, but the actual days - wow. There is no night more magical than Christmas Eve, a night when everything is possible and the great mystery enwraps you in its joy. My favourite night of the year. May all the joys and wonders of this season go out to all of you, wherever you may be.

Saved by the Cat

If  you haven't yet come across this gem of a book, then beg, borrow or steal a copy of "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder. Although written for screenwriters, the advice in it is totally applicable to any kind of genre fiction, and saved me tonight. Up till now, I have been the kind of writer described as a 'pantser" ie I write by the seat of my pants, making it up as I go along.
But that method is not working for my current book. I'm stuck, wallowing in pages of bland, go nowhere words, that would drive a reader to insensibility if they were kind enough to keep reading them.
So I am having to do some pre-planning, to kick life into the plot and find out where I am going. And for that, my fallback guardian is Blake Snyder's 'Cat', filled with simple lists and how-to check sheets. It might look like 'write-by-numbers' hokey, but it actually works. And his suggestions are so simple and easy to follow that even a pantser like me can come up with a simple, 1 page plot map, with all the required story peaks and troughs filled in.
Will I follow it? Who knows. Will it get me writing freely again - already has, and that's what really counts. I'm off on my journey again, out of the swamp, and here's to the adventure to come.