Once upon a time, I used to write a lot of fiction. Fantasy/Sci-Fi as a kid, literary fiction in college, etc. I even wrote a play once.

But somewhere along the way, I became a technical writer, and when you’re writing for a living in a genre that is the antithesis of fiction, sometimes things get lost. And, I’m not just talking about losing your motivation to write, which definitely happens. I’m also talking about rusty skills. Really really rusty skills.

Yesterday, a friend of mine shared a draft of some fiction he wrote, and I had a total blast reading it and writing feedback. I got extremely nostalgic for my fiction classes in college, and the whole close-knit workshopping group energy. It also made me realize that I still really really care about the craft of writing. I might not have the same analytical skills, or the same instincts, but I had a blast putting thought into someone else’s fiction and offering up what I thought would make it work better.

Today, I tore through my apartment until I found a very old USB stick that contained all my documents and essays and yes, all my fiction, from college. I just spent about an hour and a half uploading them all into Google Docs. I’ve got about 30 documents from my fiction class. Some of them are rough drafts, unfinished ideas, half-formed bits of scene, etc. But, there’s also a few totally finished pieces. And one of them, I still think is pretty good.

I’m very motivated to get back into fiction now. I’m thinking Mondays or Wednesdays might be good days to regularly designate as Fiction Days.

On Fiction Day, videogames, tv, and beer will all be off-limits. Writing and reading fiction won’t be. Also, talking about fiction, blogging about fiction, or reading about the craft of fiction will also be totally fine.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling and personal thoughts. But it’s my blawg and I can do with it what I want. :)

Well, you’ve waited long enough!

Here’s the 30 second synopsis of my fiction project:

The only two nations that exist on this fantasy-ish planet have been at war for pretty much all of recorded history until the son of the emperor of one nation learns how the war started in the first place (sorry, no spoilers), decides to try and stop the war by taking human form and seducing the queen of the other nation. He hopes she’ll love him, understand, bring peace, etc. However, she finds out who he is prematurely (due to her form of innate magic), immediately distrusts, fears the worse etc, and decides “fuck my life” (only more melodramatically) and when their halfbreed daughter is born, she sends her into hiding and disappears herself to go form some kind of underground resistance to the tyrany that she thinks is her in-laws’ people.

This changes the form of the war, but doesn’t end it. Boo fighting. And no one can find or kill John Conner I mean, mommy dearest, the leader of the human resistance (not to mention her disappeared kid).

My story begins about 16 years later when her daughter finds out that not only was she adopted, but she’s also the daughter of this woman all her school teachers are told to say is a crazy insurgent nutjob (and probably dead). She goes totally emo (also her form of magic is waking up, and going haywire since she’s zomg only half human) and she runs away.

Her younger adopted brother, who loves her to death regardless of how fucked up she’s becoming, is the “main” character of the book I’m writing now, and he’s run off to find her and restore her sanity/stability and help her on her quest to find out who and why she is (uncovering all the backstory and history and politics along the way). Eventually it becomes their job to clean up the mess left behind by the previous generations.

At some point, the story will loop back to the origins of the war once daughter and father meet up, which is tied to the “genesis” of humanity on the planet (all of which is lost to human history). If I ever finish it, it will be a several book series… somewhat epic. OR, I could simplify it quite a bit and it will just be a young adult coming of age novel from either the brother or the sister’s point of view.

Okay that’s it! No stealing my ideas! Feel free to laugh at my silly summary. :)

My fingers hurt like hell, but it’s a good hurt. :) I stumbled through a few of the Pumpkins songs I know, some Third Eye Blind, and the few original songs I wrote back in High School (still no lyrics for any of those).

Then I remembered I had a folder of songs and tablature somewhere. Dug it out. Unfortunately, it was full of base tabs from when I was in a band (for what, a month? haha). Most of the tabs were for songs I had wanted to play (Like Naveed), but never got brave enough to actually suggest them.

Anyway, in the back of the folder, I’d stuck a 3-ring notebook with half the pages already torn out. What was left was a bunch of poetry, maybe attempts at song lyrics actually–I barely remember writing any of it.

I found this little snippet though, and I think it’s brilliant. I have a sneaky suspicion that I stole it from someone:

Jazz me up,
I’m like a bad mood soda
Feel your fizz carress my sky.
Do I?

It’s sitting all by itself above some really crappy verse in a different colored pen as if I’d thrown it in there really rushed and then didn’t know what to do with it.

Anyway, I like it. I’m not sure if it’s mine. At the edge of my brain, I think I remember trying to come up with music for it. But of course failing miserably. I’ve been told that my “original” music sounds like Christian pop-rock (no offense… but happy bouncy “rock” music is not my cup of jasmine tea.)

More quotes may follow. Wish me luck with taking a break from WoW. The rest of my life is calling. :)

I thought I knew what that meant… I’m a good writer, confident in my ability to be professional and clear… direct and concise… I asked a client a question 7 days ago about something related to their company… something I needed to know in order to finish something for them, and never got a reply. At all.

I basically wrote:

Can you give us more information about your [type of service] services? For example, which products on your site apply to these offers? How big can orders be? Do you have any electronic or print materials describing these services we can reference?

And then I said “my goal is to do x, y, and z with this information” in about 2 sentences…

I really thought that this was concise enough. It really only asks one question “can you give us more information” and then clarifies what types of information we need. If I saw an email like that in the Writing Center, I would have said “good job with being clear, clarifying, etc” and thought it fit the business environment.

However, like I said, I never got a reply, and today we were about to finish the project for this client and we still had these unresolved questions.

The bosses from Portland came down today and our President shot an email to this client to get the issue resolved because for one thing, time is running out. His email was literally 2 lines long and just asked

“Hey [name], do you do [x] or do you do [y] for your customers with your [type of service] services? Thanks, [Name].”

…

We got a reply in 5 minutes. He saw my email and suggested that it might have APPEARED that I was asking a complicated question simply by having so many words in my query.

So really folks, short is better. It’s better to shoot off a few emails several times a day with specific questions than to put them all into one email and send it out hoping for a long complete reply.

Moral of the story is: ask one question per email. Make it something that the person can answer sitting down in about 30 seconds. DON’T suggest options or alternative ways of seeing the question. “Either/or” emails work well. Essayistic thoughtful ones do not.

DON’T BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR.