Because I’m a professoinal novelologist, a lot of people think I went to college.  I didn’t.  The next assumption is that I have always been interested in writing, even from a young age.  I wasn’t.  I didn’t really consider writing as a career (or even a hobby) until I was 16.  I was a decent writer, of course, but it wasn’t a calling.  I felt no need to tell stories.  I wasn’t driven by some inner muse.  It just sort of happened.

I do believe some basic ability is important.  A monkey can’t write a book.  A dwarf can’t be a basketball star.  But I am here, as a writer, because I worked at it.

There’s nothing special about me or what I do.  Nearly anyone can do it.  And plenty of people want to do it.  But wanting to do it and doing it are two very different things.  I’m a good writer and it’s not because I was blessed by a muse that whispers in my ear.  I’m a good writer because I write, because I wrote.

I wrote for 13 years with nothing to show for it.  I wrote when there was no payday.  I wrote when it looked like I would never get published.  I wrote stories I was pretty sure would never even get published.  How many pages did I write, how many hours?  When I look at my seven published books sitting on the bookshelf, I realize just how much material I’ve produced that has been published.  And how much more I’ve written that hasn’t been and never will be.

It’s easy to do something when it’s fun and rewarding.  But if you want to be really good at something, you have to work through the hard, discouraging part.  Every book I’ve ever written has had difficult sections, parts where the characters refused to cooperate and the plot didn’t want to work with me.  But what makes me a writer is getting past those sections through sheer stubborn determination.  If I just waited for a finished book to flow out of me uninterrupted you would not be reading this now because you would never have heard of me because those books would never have been written.

Talent doesn’t come from the gods.  It comes from doing something and doing it over and over again until you get good at it.  Or at least until you get lucky.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Funny though.  Without Heroscape, I don’t think I’d be married today.  It was through Heroscape and a convoluted series of events that I met my lovely wife.  So if you ever love why I love games, that’s why.  They’ve given me hours of fantastic entertainment, taught me quite a bit about life (even though I know that sounds absurd), and they got me a wife.  So a guy really can’t ask for much more than that.  Although if they could somehow create a game that could give me laser vision, I’d want for nothing.  But that’s probably being greedy.

I went to a friend’s book club meeting this weekend, and it was a lot of fun.  It’s always cool to meet people who are excited to meet me.  When I do a booksigning, for example, I tend not to attract much of a crowd.  If I sign or sell four or five books, it’s a rousing success.  So when I actually get to talk to people that seem happy to see me, it’s still something I’m not entirely used to.

The book read was Gil’s All Fright Diner, and one of the questions asked was about Tammy.  If you haven’t read the book by chance, Tammy is the villain of the piece, a teenage sorceress with sinister designs on the titled diner.  Tammy is of Japanese descent, and she’s also adopted.  Someone asked me what happened to her parents and how she ended up in Rockwood.

I admitted I had no idea.  Hadn’t really thought about it.

There’s a myth that in order to write a character, you have to know everything about them.  It’s absolutely not true.  There’s another myth that if something is unusual about a character, it probably ties into the plot in some way.  So if Tammy is adopted, that must mean something.  But, honestly, it was just something that happened as I wrote the story.  Tammy was Japanese-American, an off-hand detail thrown in for no good reason other than why-the-heck-not?  And she was adopted because . . . well, for exactly the same reason.

Most of my characters do not have elaborate backstories, and I like it that way.  I don’t really care how they got where they are most of the time.  I care where they are and where they’re going.  Some might argue that you need to know a character’s past to understand how they would react, but I tend to view the past as an illusion anyway.  I’m less concerned with what happened in the past than with how they relate to the world now.

It’s tricky.  There are indeed times when backstory is important, and for some characters, their history is absolutely essential.  But I usually find it irrelevant.  One of the most elaborate backstories I’ve ever created belonged to Mack Megaton, the protagonist of The Automatic Detective.  Mack actually has quite a bit of justification for how he came to be.  And none of it ended up in the book, aside from a few hints here or there.  There just wasn’t a place for it, and to put it in would’ve only slowed the novel’s pace.

But even in stories where backstory is important, I usually am uninterested.  I couldn’t care less about how Darth Vader became evil or how the Empire came to power, for instance.  I don’t need to know how the Jedi were wiped out or how Luke Skywalker was born.  All those questions are irrelevant.  And trying to answer them only ends up tying everything into uncomfortable knots of continuity snarls.

I still believe that my job as a writer is to tell you just enough of a story that you can make as much or as little of it as you want.  Perhaps in your imagination, Tammy’s parents were sacrificed to a dark god and their daughter was shipped to Rockwood to begin the Apocalpyse.  Or maybe they just died in a car crash.  Or maybe they just gave her up because they didn’t like kids.  Your answer is as good as mine, and that’s cool with me.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to any of those questions.  Writing is weird like that.  I write things.  I get paid.  Even if it doesn’t prove I’m good at it, proves that at least I can keep a roof over my head doing it.  And I get positive feedback on this blogging stuff.  Of course, that’s kind of a self-selecting audience.  Very few people take the time to post a comment telling me how obnoxious I am although I’m sure those folks are out there, too.

But ignoring those people and going by the checks that go into my bank account and the positive comments on my blogs and even the occasional real life person who says they read something of mine and liked it, I’ve got something going on here.  Some, dare I say it, talent.  (I dared.)

I hate that word though because it takes my job and makes it seem magical.  When really all I do is sit down in front of a computer and make up stories.  Anybody can do it.  Not anybody can do it well, but that doesn’t prevent a lot of bad writers from getting paid and getting paid well.  (Insert your favorite successful, untalented writer of choice here.)

That’s something I never forget.  No matter how good a writer I think I am, no matter how many people adore me (and while it’s not really that many people, it sure is a lot more than I ever expected), I could stink on ice.  I could be one of those bad but financially viable writers I make fun of.  Irony can be a real pain in the ass, huh?

Oh, and don’t bother telling me how great I am.  While it’s nice to hear, I’m not fishing for compliments.  Also, you might be one of those people with really bad taste that help encourage bad writers.  Either way, I thank you for indulging me because I’m a great writer, an adequate juggler, and a generally cool dude, but I’d probably be loading boxes on the night shift at UPS right now if it wasn’t for you.

Moving on . . .

So in addition to being a (disgruntled) comic book fan.  I’m also a game player.  I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somewhere, I crossed the line from hobbyist to full-blown enthusiast.  I know game companies the same way people know car manufacturers.  I even follow some game designers the same way movie afficianados follow directors.

(FYI:  Bruno Faidutti has yet to make a bad game.  Ad Astra is a current favorite among my small gaming group.)

If such a thing is even possible, game designers are even more obscure than novelologists.  While everyone has heard of Stephen King and Daniel Steele, who knows the name of the guy who designed Sorry?

Even the hobby is difficult to explain.  When people find out that you play games, they usually get this perplexed look on their face and say “Like Monopoly?”  Then I close my eyes and shake my head.

“Kinda. . . ”

I’ve pretty much given up on trying to explain it because unless you’ve experienced the joy of Heroscape, Monsterpocalypse, or Citadels, you just ain’t gonna get it.

And finally . . .

Godzilla would totally kick King Kong’s ass.  Don’t try denying it.  One is a huge, city destroying, radiaoctive, fire-breathing dinosaur.  The other is a big ape that couldn’t even climb a single building without getting shot down like a chump.

Biplanes?  Seriously?  That’s weak.  So until you get laser vision or the power to regenerate, Kong, you should probably stay out of the big leagues.  Just a suggestion.

And on that controversial note, I bid you all a good night.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee