89 Authorial self-Indulgence with Tex Thompson and Daniel Koboldt

Posted on October 24, 2016 by dan
I am probably not going to be invited to Mr. Martin's birthday party.

I am probably not going to be invited to Mr. Martin’s birthday party.

Last year I talked with fellow novelists Tex Thompson and Dan Koboldt about going off the rails in writing and getting too involved with world-building. Now I’m dusting off that conversation in celebration of the publication of my deisle-punk dragon novella PETROLEA, available now 😉

“I’ve got this racial slur in my book that the fishmen use to describe humans!”

The book I’m writing now. Ahem.

Turkish Bostancı Başı, “the chief executioner” versus Bulgarian Bostanskiat Bashi, “the head of the melon garden”

Tyrannosaur Queen and its future language with prefixed plurals

George R.R. Martin and his epic five page descriptions of heraldry and stew

Westeros Cookbooks

Martin’s freaking neeps

J.R.R. Tolkien the superdork

What is this, a fantasy book I can’t stun a seagull with?

Brandon Sanderson always shows and never tells

Max Barry’s Lexicon,which could have been four books

Brandon Sanderson’s 0th law: always err on the side of awesome

Not everyone gets to be Catniss with a bow

What furthers the plot?

“Oh wow, this is your browser history that I’m reading right now.”

New Frontiers and its creepy and disgusting sex scenes

Literary fiction and the English professor contemplating adultery

Showing your work

Petrolea (my dieselpunk dragon story available soon!)

Oh, miércoles!

Battlestar Galactica ruined fracking for me

Write what you love in such a way that other people will love it

 How to Win Friends and Influence People (please buy it for Dan)

Zero-sum game

The best results come from when you’re helping others.

Carrie Patel at Loncon

We need diverse fiction

 

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  • Tex Thompson

    By the way, it didn’t occur to me until weeks later, but I finally realized what my sin is. I LOVE talking logistics, especially mundane ones. I could easily go on for eight pages about exactly how they’re going to dress the deer, and what they’re going to use to cook it with, and how long it will last, and what could go wrong (offal attracting predators to the camp, lack of fresh water for washing, etc.) I get so into that stuff, because if you really take time to stop and think about that ‘everyday’ stuff, you get more and more opportunities to generate conflict and interest. It doesn’t have to be “they camped and ate stew. Later, trolls attacked.” You can get just as much tension out of “they camped and ate stew, and the food-smell attracted a bear, who ate the cleric. Also, food poisoning.”

    • Food poisoning? Depends on how well the bear cooked the cleric. Ah cha cha cha!