Let the (reading) circle be unbroken …

Like him? He’s my gorgeous new neighbor! He lives in the trees near my new place, and a few days ago he fluttered down onto the railing of the footbridge out front for a visit. According to one of my featherless neighbors, he and a particular squirrel have kind of a coyote-and-roadrunner thing going on, so I’ve nicknamed him Wile E. I don’t know his species. Bird nerds, a little help?

We now return you to your regularly off-schedule blog entry …

Recently, a friend of mine mentioned that she was setting up a reading circle for a novel she’d written. For those of you who aren’t up on this kind of thing, a reading circle is a group of people who read a manuscript before the pros or the general public sees it. They make notes and suggestions to help the author improve. I’ve run quite a few circles in my time, and participated in many more, but my friend hadn’t really done this before, so I offered her the system I use. And then it occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve blogged about that system, so here you go.

I like to have a mix of perspectives in my reading groups—male and female, young and old, with a range of interests that are still likely to overlap with the subject matter in some way. Basically, I try to cover as much of my probable audience as I can. And I make a particular point of including artistic professionals (other writers, and usually at least one musician or visual artist) who know how to give professional feedback. However, I also make a point of including civilians, preferably at least one of whom has no prior experience with my manuscript. That person goes in cold, with no idea how the story or the characters will develop, to act as a kind of barometer for the reaction of an uninformed reader.

Of course, the civilians—especially the noob or noobs—often don’t know how to give feedback. Their idea of constructive criticism was probably formed around third grade, and perhaps not used since. They often have trouble articulating their opinions, so I get unhelpful notes in my margins saying things like “This scene sucks” or “[name of character] should be taller.” (I’m not kidding—somebody actually wrote that last one once.) And if the civilian readers realize their feedback is unhelpful, many of them stop giving it entirely. Then I get notes like “Yay!” and “Good job!” because they’re scared to criticize me.

To that end, I give you the modified Sol Stein system of critical notation for amateurs. I stole it from Sol Stein, of course, the author of Stein on Writing and How to Grow a Novel, but I added my own special twist.

Stein’s system is simple: have a largeish group of readers (I find six is a good number) and ask them to make, at minimum, two kinds of marks on the manuscript: a check mark beside bits they like and an X beside bits they don’t. I add to this one sophistication: a sad face or frownie next to any bit the reader finds boring or confusing. (Most readers quickly come up with the idea of repeating the marks for emphasis when they really like or dislike something. This is fine.) If the reader can add a note explaining why a particular bit is good, bad, boring or confusing, and perhaps how to fix it, so much the better—but it’s not absolutely necessary.

The goal here is lots of data. If one person triple-checks a particular passage and three other people triple-X it, I know that’s a love-it-or-hate-it (mostly hate it) part. If anybody marks a frownie, I know to give that part extra attention because it bored or confused somebody and I can’t afford to let that slide. And here’s the important part—if one particularly articulate reader writes a long comment describing the virtues or failings of a particular passage, but a number of less articulate readers mark that passage differently with checks and Xs, I know I may be dealing with a matter of the articulate reader’s taste. The fact that one reader can write an eloquent comment and the other three can’t doesn’t give the eloquent reader’s opinion any extra weight.

That’s the advantage of this system—it keeps the writer from listening exclusively, or primarily, to the most polished voice. I know how important this is, because I’ve been that voice in many circles and writing groups. I’m an editor in my dayjob; I know how to give feedback and make it sound brilliant. And while I flatter myself that I’m fantastic at editing nonfiction manuscripts, screenplays, and everything under the sun, very occasionally I can read a friend’s manuscript and, because it’s my friend and I think I know him or her better than I do, completely mistake the direction they were trying to take. And then I give bad advice.

I don’t think I’ve ever been stupid enough to suggest something as ridiculous as adding more fight scenes to a romance novel or more wizards to a science-fiction story. My mistakes, when I make them, are small. But I remember the lesson of the early Masks reader—a grad student in writing who usually gave excellent advice—who told me with a straight face that the book would be so much better if I’d just have it turn out at the end that Rae was not a superhero but a mental patient with an elaborate fantasy life.

I still remember the stunned blinking of the other writers in the circle as I stared at the young woman and asked, just to make sure, “You mean I should have it turn out that it was all a dream?”

“Yes,” she said. “That would be a great twist.”

After a long pause, the professor leading the discussion gave me an exasperated look and called on someone else for notes.

Even professional readers can make mistakes, and the opinions of “normal,” non-professional readers matter just as much as those of highly articulate pros—more, in some ways, because most real-world readers aren’t pros. Professional feedback is great for finding weaknesses that average readers won’t spot, things that will kill the story later on, and it’s wonderful for actually showing writers how to fix problems. But pros have their pet peeves and hobbyhorses too, and they’re better at disguising them as legitimate criticism. You can’t afford to mistake someone’s personal crusade against unicorns for a reason to never, ever write a story about a unicorn. Maybe all the normal people—the ones who will be buying your book—actually like unicorns. You won’t know unless you listen to a wide range of viewpoints.

So get those normal people into your group. Teach them the way of checks and Xs and frownies. You just might find something better than your dream ending …

Game face

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the difference between writers and wannabe writers is that writers write. They sit their butts in the chair and scratch away in a notebook or hammer away at a keyboard. Most of it’s crap. Most of it you will never get to see, and you should rejoice in that fact. Writers know that it’s their job to pull diamonds out of dungheaps, and that most of the dung will be theirs.

All writers know this. But this week I was reminded.

I think of my “normal” writing pace as three chapters a week. That’s first-draft speed; my revision speed varies widely. But in an average seven-day period, I can usually hammer out three 2,000-to-4,000-word chunks of whatever story I’m working on. Call it the product of several years of writing for people I saw every day; I developed one hell of a first-draft work ethic.

But this week, I got handed a little extra motivation.

I’m currently running chapters of The Novel past a lovely writing circle called SandScribes that meets every other Tuesday night in Huntington Beach. The group is a nice mix of writers and illustrators, all with an interest in producing books for young readers—from picture books for preschoolers to novels for young adults. I came blundering into the group in December so I could get The Novel whipped into shape and tell prospective agents that I’d run it past a serious writing circle.

And at the rate of one polished chapter every two weeks, I could just about handle the workload. I had to send chapters in a week before each meeting so people would have time to read them, but I didn’t mind that. One of my fellow writers had even complimented me on my work ethic, and told me I was encouraging her to work harder on her own book just to keep up with the new kid. She clearly didn’t realize how slowly everything was moving for me this time around!

Then they changed the schedule. One member of the group needed to shift the alternate-Tuesdays arrangement to the other set of alternate Tuesdays, with the result that last Tuesday’s meeting will be immediately followed by this Tuesday’s meeting. And almost every head at the table turned my way, and someone asked, “So, do you think you can send us another chapter by Friday?”

And being myself, I said, “Sure. No problem.”

Of course, there was a problem. I was trying to finally finish the first draft of The Novel so I could start revising the whole darn thing, en banc, and send it out to my group of beta readers. I had three chapters to finish that week, and as of Tuesday I’d only written one. I knew my undiagnosed OCD wouldn’t let me work on revising Chapter 4 (the chapter I happened to need for next Tuesday) until I’d finished writing Chapters 19 and 21. (I’d written Chapter 20 the night before, in a rare deviation from strict chapter order.) How was I supposed to polish up the beginning of my story while my head was full of its ending?

But there’s no motivation like an audience. Chalk it up to my years in amateur dramatics; you shove me out onstage and I feel absolutely compelled to do something entertaining, lest I be booed off. I was once stranded onstage during a production of Our Town, dressed as the Stage Manager, with absolutely no lines; I’d just finished my monologue, and of the two actors who were supposed to be in the scene after mine, one couldn’t be found and the other wandered onstage alone, gave me a meaningful look, and froze artfully in place. I improvised an entire monologue on the spot so the audience wouldn’t realize what had happened. I think I doubled the size of the imaginary town of Grover’s Corners, and I know I went on for quite a while about crickets. So when a few trusting souls turn to me and say, “You can meet this deadline—right?” … I really have no choice.

 

Chapter 19 was like ripping out my own fingernails, but I wrote it in a haze of caffeinated tea (mostly the Watson Blend from Adagio). Chapter 21 turned out to have half of it sitting around in a notebook, but the rest I scrawled out in a different notebook and then I attacked the whole thing at the keyboard until it cried uncle. I hammered out the revisions on Chapter 4 as the day was ending, and sent it out to the writing circle with half an hour left in Friday.

I honestly can’t remember half of what I did, except for the bit where I was pounding the printout of Chapter 4 with my fist in excitement because it was finally working. Over the weekend, I started working on the full-book revisions. Tomorrow night, I’ll find out whether Chapter 4 was as good as I thought or not. But it’s great to be working with a deadline, and an audience. Genius is 99% perspiration, they say—and in my case, it’s probably flop sweat. 

And soon I’ll have to start banging out Volume 2 of Masks. After all, I can’t disappoint my audience …

A Halloween hallucination

It’s a strange feeling to meet your character in the real world.

I’m told that Sir Terry Pratchett visited the set during the filming of the TV version of his excellent novel Hogfather. He had a cameo role in the production, sharing a scene with perhaps his most iconic character, but actually running into the guy was a little jarring. You see, his co-star was Death—the Grim Reaper himself—robes, scythe, and all. Death makes a personal appearance in nearly every novel in Pratchett’s Discworld series (37 of 39), and takes center stage in Hogfather, where he takes over the role of a Santa-Claus-like figure after the fat man’s untimely demise. (Imagine children waiting up for Santa and getting a skeleton down the chimney instead. Exactly—hilarious!) So you can imagine Pratchett’s reaction when the first person he met on-set was a 6’7” Dutchman in a black robe with a polished white skull for a face. On the one hand, it’s delightful to see the fruits of your imagination brought so vividly to life. On the other, it does tend to make you worry about your sanity—and, in the case of Sir Terry, your impending mortality as well.

So here’s what Johanna looks like in her custom-tailored Peregrine costume, which you’ll all be seeing later on the cover of the collected edition of Masks:

I was happy to find the costume came out pretty close to Nicole’s original drawings. The tunic turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected—any big sewing project always does—but I think it’s still within the abilities of a talented sixteen-year-old with sufficient motivation. The real problem was appliquéing the Peregrine insignia on the back, which was probably eight or ten hours’ very fine and fiddly work. (Next time I design a superhero costume, the insignia is going to be a circle or something just as easy to sew!)

I’m rather proud of the pin, though. I was unable to get a metal fabricator on board, and unlike Rae, I don’t have access to a metal shop, so I had to make do with polystyrene and the judicious use of a Dremel rotary tool. It was my first time using a Dremel, and I am inordinately proud that I didn’t injure myself in the process. Last time I checked, I still held my high school’s record for the largest number of objects broken in a single chemistry experiment, so I fully expected to spend my weekend in the emergency room, but I didn’t even come close to cutting myself, and with a little touch-up paint, the results weren’t too bad. My only real complaint about the pin is the mirrored finish; I don’t think Rae would wear anything that reflective, but I didn’t know how shiny the plastic would be when I ordered it, and it was either that or take my chances applying silver paint to flat black styrene. Still and all, not a bad job, and any little inconsistencies can be fixed digitally when I take the cover photos.

Still and all, it was weird to look at. I’ve known Johanna for years, but as soon as she pulled that hood up over her hair, it was like someone else was standing there. She borrowed my favorite black bandana to use as a facecloth, something I’ve done myself as part of other costumes, and even though I’d seen and handled every part of the costume while making it, something about seeing her pull the bandana up over the bridge of her nose transformed her into someone I didn’t know in quite the same way. I found myself taking mental notes on little things—the way the folds of the bandana settled around her neck when she tugged her mask down, the way her eyes moved in the shadow of the hood—as if I were observing a stranger.

So this is what it’s like to hallucinate, I thought as I put my camera up between myself and my creation.

There was a little bit of pride involved (hey, look, my character design actually works!) and a little trepidation (gee, I hope this doesn’t look stupid to everyone else), but mostly it was just weird. I remarked that I was probably more excited about seeing Johanna in the costume than I would have been about wearing it myself. Johanna asked why.

“Because,” I said, “if you dress up as my sixteen-year-old character, it’s cute. If I dress up as my sixteen-year-old character, it’s creepy.”

But that wasn’t the only reason, of course. There’s more than a little of me in Rae, and I can’t help wondering … if I start dressing up as my own creation, how will anyone tell where she ends and I begin?

Will I still be there at all?

Oh, well. Happy Halloween, everybody!

How to make your own MASKS T-shirts (and other stuff too)

Okay, here’s how I put together the T-shirts the stylin’ Masks Posse wore to Comic-Con. These directions tell you how to create the image on a black T-shirt, which is considerably harder than on a white one. All images referenced in this post are available in this Photobucket album.

1. Snag the image of Rae and Trevor holding hands—either full-color or black, white, and red. Save it to your computer.

2. Open it using the GIMP image manipulation freeware (available at http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/The_GIMP/gimp.html)

3. Copy the image (right-click + “Copy”).

4. Open a new image in GIMP of the same dimensions (my version was 4844 x 5358 pixels).

5. From the “Layers” menu, select “Add Alpha Channel.”

6. Also from the “Layers” menu, select “Color to Alpha” and set the color to whatever the background color of your image is. (In my case, it was white.)

7. Paste the Rae-Trevor image onto your new image.

8. Now here’s the tricky and time-consuming and crazy-making part. Using the Eraser tool from the main GIMP toolbox, erase all the parts of the image that aren’t Rae and Trevor. All that uniform white around them? Erase as much of it as you can, keeping as close to their bodies as you can without erasing the figures. You will see a checkerboard pattern emerge as you erase the black. Everywhere you see checkerboard, you will have a transparent image. So erase everything you don’t want to see on a shirt.

9. Save the file as a PNG file, and jump through any hoops GIMP makes you jump through to do that.

10. Go to http://www.cafepress.com/make/custom-t-shirts.

11. Click on whatever T-shirt you want to design. I created this design for a black T-shirt, so I recommend something that comes in black. There are sizing charts and whatall—just pick what you like, click on the shirt, and go to the shirt designer.

12. Upload your image to Cafepress. If it’s too big, go back to GIMP and re-save your image in a smaller size.

13. Add the text to your shirt. I used the Chandler font in a dark red for “MASKS” and in white for “Truth / Justice / Secrets.”

14. Drop your image onto the shirt and pull it around and resize it until it’s where you want it. The pattern will let you center your image, but please note that Rae’s and Trevor’s hands are slightly off-center because Trevor’s throwing arm sticks out a little more on his side. I chose to center their hands over the S in MASKS, and centered the text. Don’t go outside the boundaries of the design area on the shirt. Nothing outside that box will print.

15. When you’re satisfied, click “Done” and order your shirt!

TO DO THIS ON A WHITE SHIRT:

Just upload the image and add the text. No muss, no fuss.

TO MAKE BUTTONS:

The button images are available too. Upload them to either Cafepress or Zazzle.com (the site I used this time around), center and jigger them around until you’ve got what you want, and then order as many buttons as you can stand.

There. You are now the most stylish walking billboard in town!

How to make a last-minute Christmas gift--with ears!

For those of you with even a little sewing acumen (by which I mean those of you who remember those stitch-with-yarn cards from preschool), here’s a quick and easy way to please a few people on your list this year.



During the summer, I used some fleece scraps to construct a coyote hat—ears and all—similar to the cat-eared “kitty hats” popular among anime fans. The hat was something of a hit, and got quite a laugh from my friends one chilly night recently when I wore it on an expedition to look at Christmas lights. It also kept my ears warm.



So here’s how to make your very own eared hat—bunny-eared, cat-eared, or—if you’re inclined to show your Masks spirit—coyote-eared. I recommend gray for that, because people don’t believe in brown coyotes.



1. Buy a half-yard or so of fleece from your local fabric store. You can probably get it as a remnant, or odd end of an old bolt of fabric, which is cheaper than buying it off the bolt. Get a color you can stand—you do have to wear this thing. I recommend “anti-pill” fleece rather than “blizzard” fleece—it’s a bit more expensive, but after you’ve washed your hat a few times, you start to notice the difference. Get some thread in a suitable color. You’ll also need a needle and some straight pins.



2. Measure your head. Wrap a tape measure around your cranium at about where you want the bottom of the hat to rest. If you want your hat to cover your ears, wrap the tape around your ears when you make the measurement. Measure from the top of your head to the bottom of your planned hat so you know how tall your hat will be. I like to pull mine down to my eyebrows when I’m cold, but your results may vary.



3. Go to http://www.wildginger.com/products/wildthings.htm and download the “Wild Things” freeware program. The program lets you make lots of simple hats, bags, accessories, etc, but what you want here is the Baseball Hat program. Select the Baseball Hat, input your head circumference and intended height of your hat (minus the width of your band—see step 5), and generate a pattern. You will see, among other things, a bunch of pattern pieces shaped like pie slices. Print out one of those pie slices and cut it out of the paper.



4. Choose the “right” and “wrong” side of your fabric. There’s no right or wrong way to do this (ha), so pick which side of the fabric you want to be on the outside of the hat. That’s your “right” side. Cut six pie slices from your fabric, with the pattern on the right side. NOTE: The pattern will include a seam allowance—a dotted line that shows you how far into the fabric you will be sewing your seam. Make sure you can live with that seam allowance. If you think you need a bigger one, cut the pieces bigger, but be consistent.



5. Cut out your hat’s headband. This will help the hat maintain its shape. Decide how wide you want the headband—I like three or four inches—and then cut a strip twice that wide and as long as your head circumference, plus seam allowances all around the piece.



6. Make your ears. Draw your ear shape on a piece of paper and cut it out. Cat ears, coyote ears, ears with notches, whatever floats your boat—just draw the ear, draw your seam allowance around it, and then cut the piece out of the paper. Cut four ear pieces from your fabric. NOTE: If you want a contrast lining—where the inside of the ear is a color different from the color of the outside—cut two of your four ear pieces from the contrast fabric.



7. Sew your ears. Each ear is made from two ear pieces (or one regular ear piece and one contrast ear piece) sewn together with their right sides facing each other, leaving the bottom edges open. Sew each ear in this way and then turn your ears inside out. BONUS POINT: Hold the ears to your head at this juncture and run around the house making “rawr!” noises. This will encourage people to leave you alone while you sew the rest of the hat, as you’re obviously out of your skull.



8. Sew the two halves of your hat. Each half is made of three pie slices, sewn together at the sides so that the points come together at the top. Sew the pie slices with their right sides together. This way, when you turn your hat right-side out, the seam allowances will be on the inside and the outside of your hat will appear smooth.



9. Attach your ears and sew your halves together. As you fit the two halves of your hat together (right sides together), position your ears in the seam and pin them there if necessary. Remember, the bottom of each ear should be sticking into a seam and the top of each ear should be on the inside (right side) of the hat when the hat is inside-out for sewing. So while you’re sewing this hat, you see only the bottoms of your ears sticking into your seam. Stitch the front and back of your hat together. If you have contrast ears, make sure the contrasts on the two ears are both facing the same direction—toward the forward side of your hat. BONUS POINT: To add dimensionality to your ears, fold one side in just a bit so that the fold is toward the crown of the hat. This will make your ears stick out more and appear to be listening forward or out to the sides.



10. Make your hatband. Sew the ends of the band together (right sides together again) to make a loop with the same circumference as your hat.



11. Attach your band. Center the seam in your loop on the back of your hat (it should end up in the middle of the center back piece), and then pin the band in place there—right sides together. Work your way around the hat, pinning the band with the right sides together, to make sure everything fits. Stitch the band in place.



12. Turn the band right-side out (you should see a smooth seam where the band joins the pie slices). Now fold the band in half and tuck the other side into the inside of the hat. Pin the free side in place just like you did the previous side. Stitch your hatband to the inside of your hat. If you want to fold your edge under and stitch right-sides-together again, go ahead, or just attach it any old way you like as long as you don’t make too big a mess visible on the outside of the hat.



13. Turn the hat right-side-out and stitch on any accessories you want, like eyes or scars or fangs or other shapes, preferably cut from fleece. Painting designs on fleece is hard, embroidering them isn’t worth your time, and while felt is cheap and tempting, it doesn’t wash well, and you will eventually want to wash this hat. I plan to sew fangs on my next coyote hat after hearing several people remark that it appeared to be eating my head.



14. Tug your hat onto your head, or wrap it up to present to the animal in your life. If you’ve had the good taste to make a Masks coyote hat, go howl at the moon!



I can make one of these suckers by hand in two or three hours. I assume it’s faster on a sewing machine. The fabric and thread generally come to less than ten bucks—less than five if I use coupons or poke around the right stores. These hats generally sell for about thirty bucks at conventions, so with a little ingenuity it’s not hard to be the envy of your fandom.



Best of all, fleece does not fray out like most fabrics, so you can expect your hat to look good and keep your head warm for a long time. At least until a hungry coyote steals it off your head.