A&A The Official Matthew Woodring Stover Discussion Thread

The fact that she was a Chalactan Adept was determined by prior authors; she's described as such in at least one source-book that was in print when I was researching Shatterpoint. Since the metaphysics of Star Wars leans heavily toward the Zen/Taoist/Theravada kind of gig, I semi-arbitrarily decided that the practice of the Chalactan Adepts was a semi-contemplative search for enlightenment.

So -- appropriately -- the answer is both no and yes.

 

You and James Luceno are behind the highest points of published Star Wars literature. Thank you for your masterpieces and do us all a favor and persuade LFL to let you novelize Dark Empire.
As a mutual friend of ours once said: "It is unavoidable... it is your destiny..."

 

Matt, would your advice be different for just getting into publishing regular Literature? Instead of specializing in SFF/Speculative/etc.?

 

Not so much. The basics are still the same. There are a lot more people making a living doing mainstream fiction largely because there are a lot more people writing it; the percentage of chuck-everything-else-and-just-write is probably double, but that's only a jump from less than 1% to about 2%.

Statistically, the chances of any given infant growing up to be successful novelist for a career-sized span are about the same as that it will grow up to play professional sports. In the majors.

Also, in the genre, anyone who can produce publishable prose on a schedule can get work of a sort; there are always more media tie-ins around than there are good writers to pen them. When you're a mainstream guy, if you haven't MADE IT by your third novel (or so), you may never get paid for fiction again.

You'll excuse me for going on at some length here; as you might guess, this is a subject I have thought a great deal about.

The other thing to consider is that fiction is, interpersonally, a crummy way to make a living. Part of the reason I check in here every day or so is because the Internet is virtually my only human contact outside my wife and whoever I might meet while I'm walking my dog. My work day consists of me sitting alone in my office -- sometimes typing merrily away, but more often struggling with the crushing depression of having screwed something up and wasted days or weeks of work -- which postpones any chance of income for similar days or weeks. Which ain't so bad when you're in college, but it really sucks when you're pushing 50 with a family and a mortgage.

I depend on writing for the bulk of my income because I am neither psychologically nor professionally trained in any field where I can earn a comparable living. Before I was a novelist, I was a stage actor, and a pretty successful one -- but acting is even more uncertain as a profession than writing. I was never going to grow up to be a lawyer or a doctor or a journalist or some variety of scientist because I'm just not sane enough to be able to give my full attention to (what is to me) boring, meaningless crap, because all I really care about in the world is narrative. If it's a story, I'm your guy. If it's a legal brief or a peer-reviewed paper, there isn't enough anti-depressant on Earth to get me from idea to submission.

There are a number of very, very capable writers (even some great ones) who started out as journalists, and that's a great place to go if you're a word-and-story person. Starting as a free-lance stringer for newspapers didn't do Hemingway's career any harm at all -- in fact, it's probably what made him the writer he became. There are a number of professions other than journalism that depend on the ability to create narrative -- being a litigator is a prominent one, as well as any species of historian.

Scott Turow is still a litigator, as far as I know. John Grisham used to be one. Michael Crichton was a doctor. A strong statistical sampling of hard SF guys are actual scientists.

Which is to say: what you don't want to do is make writing your primary field of study. Train yourself in a useful profession that is related to your interests as a writer; then your life can inform your writing in a very direct way. People who actually write for a living pretty regularly end up killing themselves (Hemingway, Thomas Disch, David Foster Wallace) or drink themselves to an early grave (F Scott Fitzgerald, John Kennedy Toole, Raymond Chandler [who also attempted suicide], William Faulkner). The point is that writing is BAD FOR YOU.

Do anything else you can for a living; then you can write when you feel like it, and do something else when you don't feel like writing.

In other words: STAY IN SCHOOL AND DON'T DO DRUGS and all the rest of that The More You Know crap.

 

Great advice Matt. Thank you for everything.

What though, do you recommend for a mid-20's, two kid father, with nothing more than a HS diploma, and no major field or anything? And not exactly the money to go back to school?

Just work and write?

 

I don't know what you do for a living; if the Work end of your Work and Write strategy is a career-path kind of job that pays pretty well and provides a decent pension plan (i.e. union labor or something similar), AND that you can imagine doing it for the rest of your life without crushing depression, then Work and Write. Otherwise, you have a bigger problem than breaking into print.

My advice would be to find a night school or online degree program first. I started writing in most of my spare time when I was 15. I didn't get paid for it until I was 34 (I was 33 when Iron Dawn sold, but due to the mechanics of the publishing industry at the time, I didn't get any money for almost six months).

Now, at that time I had only myself and the Fabulous Robyn to worry about, so while the payment delay was irritating, it wasn't catastrophic. Various payment delays on later books were.

If you've got The DaVinci Code or The Bridges of Madison County or Harry Potter up your sleeve, you don't need my advice, you just need to get the manuscript in front of a qualified agent.

I don't have children -- child-rearing being another one of those things of which I am not psychologically capable -- and even so, these four months of unemployment (while I'm struggling to finish my overdue projects) have created a severe plunge in our net worth . . . and what I'll be paid on these two projects will not entirely fill the hole, once taxes and suchlike expenses are figured in.

Life is more important than art.

 

As always Matt, thanks for all the advice.

 

The other thing to consider is that fiction is, interpersonally, a crummy way to make a living. Part of the reason I check in here every day or so is because the Internet is virtually my only human contact outside my wife and whoever I might meet while I'm walking my dog

That actually sounds way better than being infront of the Christmas crazed, booze demanding masses at the Liquor Barn. And thats the sober folk.

I guess what I'm trying to say is its funny how perspective works. I deal with thousands of invidual people on a weekly basis and absolutly love every moment I can get without human contact. I constantly think about how awesome it would be to have a job where I don't have to constantly deal with other people.

While you on the other hand probably spend the same amount of time thinking about how fun it would be to actually have other people around to talk with and keep you company.

I suspect if either of us ended up in the others shoes it wouldn't take long for our POV's to completely flip. The grass is always greener on the other side

 

Would I want your job? No. Would I be able to do mine without at least occasional human contact? Also no. It's not a grass-is-greener thing; it's a recognition of the fundamental structure of being human.

I was a bartender for 23 years. I also operated a pest-control route with almost 500 individual accounts. I've worked in retail, and done sales (both telemarket and door-to-door). As a general rule, I don't suffer from too much company -- my issues with those jobs were how much time they took away from my writing. I also rarely suffer from too little company . . . except that when I spend too much time alone, I start to get weird. And not in a good way. It's not that I need company per se, it's that regular social interaction keeps us sane. Well, saner than otherwise, anyway.

Yes: one can feel oppressed or overloaded by dealing with too many people (especially strangers) too much of the time. The effect of too much solitude is different. There's a reason why hermits are generally depicted as marginally sane at best, and why solitary confinement is used as a punishment.

Human beings are not built like, say, tigers; we're not evolved to be solitary except when mating and rearing cubs. We are much more like chimpanzees: highly social within the constraints of our tribe or clan or sept or whatever you want to call it. People who are actual loners (that is, people who truly prefer to be alone all or even most of the time) are psychological outliers at best, and more likely actively pathological.

Very, very smart people -- by which I mean, for example, everyone who contributes to this board -- tend to be more tolerant of solitude, as they often have the intellectual resources to armor themselves against deterioration, and they can, for example, imaginatively re-connect with society through reading books and the suchlike pursuits. However, that only goes so far. Fortunately, we have the Internet, where we can interact without worrying about our hair, the state of our clothing (or un-clothing), and how long it's been since the last time we flossed.

But at some point, you have to worry about that stuff . . . or you've cracked.

 

Hmmm... fascinating conversation. This is much better than those hokey articles in magazines such as Writer's Journal and the like.

 

And here we have internet speculation that a writer's characters can fill in some of that writer's Dunbar number. Honestly, Dunbar's speculations are rather fascinating; it's a shame that Malcolm Gladwell got his hands on them and popularized them in such a way that no one will ever bother reading the original. . .

 

Crucial, at least in terms of her character. No one gets a break. If she refuses to state her intention, then she is subject to having it supplied - in concrete - unless and until she or an agent on her behalf indicates otherwise. In Star Wars, what with the availability of information coming from the dead, that remains a possibility.

 

I recently finished Shadows of Mindor - god-damn. What a brilliant book. It put me in mind of The Dark Knight in terms of not having every single nuance explained to the audience, leaving a lot up to the deduction of the reader to work out, and how there's all these layers to a lot of the deceptively-two-dimensional elements. The title itself was an allure to begin with, but after reading it and backing it against a lot of the elements within the story it just made it all that much more awesome.
Damn good book, Mr Stover - certainly right up there in my favourites with ROTS and Traitor. Can't wait for your next work :-D

 

You may have missed the point. Further, I hope you realize that the above is not only an insupportable assertion, but that it doesn't actually make sense.

Having come to a reasonably comprehensive (as regards Star Wars, at least) understanding of both your moral universe and your intellectual firepower, I'm assuming that you don't actually mean what you wrote there -- or that you are unaware that it invites misapprehension of your position.

Based on what you've written above, it seems that what you're saying is that because we don't have direct evidence of her intentions -- because we can't, in effect, read her mind -- her intentions are whatever you say they are. (Or, I suppose, what anyone says they are -- at least whoever's pouring your concrete.) Which, really, is just a cheap rhetorical dodge -- a logical fallacy generally known as the Appeal to Motive, a first cousin to the ad hominem attack. This is where one's rhetorical position relies on ascribing nefarious motives to one's opponent, so that one need not engage the opponent's actual argument or position. This particular dodge is endlessly popular with politicians and media pundit shouting-types (of all political persuasions), because it relieves both the speaker and the audience of the need to actually think.

It also, now that I think of it, seems to be popular with people who hate my books. [That's an FYI aside, btw -- I don't mean to imply that you hate my books. In fact, I have some confidence that you lean more toward the opposite stance.]

In fact, we have considerable evidence of Vergere's intentions: we have her words and her actions, which is all the evidence of intention we ever have of any person we will ever meet. Period. To pretend otherwise is to ascribe oneself supernatural powers.

It seems to amuse some people to construct an imaginary narrative, a Secret History of Vergere, in which they decide on her Real Motives and marshal evidence to prove their imaginary narrative is not imaginary at all, but that it lies somewhere in the text, without being of the text, or possibly the other way around . . . that it's floating vaguely around in some sort of parallel universe, one supposes, and can be proved by a post-structuralist manqué analysis of what the author is not saying.

Which is fine. As Abraham Lincoln reputedly said, "People who like this sort of thing will find this to be the sort of thing they like." However, when those who present these imaginary narratives refuse to accept the truth -- that it's really just crap they've made up -- it begins to interfere with their ability to see anything about the text clearly. Their invented narrative goes from being an idea to being an ideology -- which is where I usually step in, have a look around, and say, "How the fnord did you get here?"

And -- since I do suspect (as I hypothesized above) that you don't really believe what it appears you said -- I would like to take this opportunity to offer my thanks, my friend, for having corralled one of my favorite hobby horses so I could take him out for a spin.

Mastadge --

Welcome back to the thread! The linked post was interesting; do you know where I can find Dunbar's original research? (Not that I have time to read it, but still -- interesting.)

Dashiva --

Thank you. You're very kind, and I'm glad you liked the book.

And much gratitude for the Dark Knight shout-out you slid in there. I've been a Batman fan for more than forty years, and having anything of mine strike Bat-Sparks in someone's mind is really very cool.

 

Dunbar, R. I. M. (1993). Co-evolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16(4): 681-735.

Also see Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language by Robin Dunbar -- which, incidentally, is one of only two books I've tried without success to find in my school's library.

But I first saw his theory cited in The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory, an informative, accessible (and -- best of all -- slim) volume by Swedish cognitive neuroscientist Torkel Klingberg.

Now back to lurking while writing papers. Carry on.

 

I think you over analyzed my comment, but anyway

See I do know people who do enjoy the type of work that I do, and I have had jobs that result in working alone for long periods of time. It's not that I'm suggesting that you'd want my job, or any other job besides the one you have, but mentioning how you find a career writing "interpersonally crummy" does kinda make me think that you would like to spend some more time around people.

Having to use we(theforce.net) as a substitute for that seems like not the optimal choice, however interesting we may be(or think we are ), but it may be the only option available.

See there are aspects of my job that I enjoy, I would not have spent 16 years of my life in liquor retail in there were not, that said I do often think about how more alone time would benefit me. But by the same extent I suspect that if I was in your shoes that I'd feel the exact same way you described.

I think its about finding a comfortable balance, working around a lot of people can be interpersonally rewarding but people can be damn annoying(some to the point of being dangerous) as well.(Hopefully I'm not one of them ...the annoying ones that is. )

 

Fear not. The examples above were merely illustrative of my point, reiterated below.

The point was/is that to write for a living (in this genre, anyway) depends upon you spending 8-12 hours a day, at least six days a week, in a room by yourself, talking only to the voices in your head, if you follow my meaning. For an example that is particularly pertinent to this forum, check out Karen Traviss' work schedule sometime. Or Isaac Asimov's. Or, these days, mine. [I am, due to deadline pressure, on a 9 hour 7 day schedule right now, although I'm going to have to take tomorrow afternoon off and go to a movie with my wife if I don't want to get divorced.]

The irony is that when you lose the daily-or-so contact with a wide variety of people, your writing suffers. One of the greatest boons to my development as a novelist was tending bar . . . because I got to spend a lot of time talking to people I would ordinarily never speak with (i.e., economists, film critics, and Ron Paul supporters). Without regular face time, your characters end up talking like TV or movie characters (at best), or they all sound like you. My characters are already too movie-fied, because I can't resist a nifty line of dialogue (probably because I was an actor, an addiction from which I have never entirely recovered).

As you suggested: finding the right balance is critical.

Mastadge --

Thanks, man. As soon as I come up for air, I'll check 'em out.

 

Heh, all of this talk leads right to the question I was about to ask you:


How many hours do you typically spend (per day/per week) writing? Same - reading?

 

I am in my office (either writing, getting ready to write, or taking a break from writing) a bit more than 70 hours a week. I am not, as I think I mentioned, currently working a job other than producing fiction, which makes the 70-hour week survivable, if not always very much fun. I customarily read while taking my meals (breakfast and lunch) in my office, and sometimes when I've hit a roadblock in the story; I read the NYTimes with breakfast, and over lunch (and often after hours) I read whatever book in which I've developed an interest.

Currently, I'm reading the Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman (the Burning of Atlanta/Sherman's March guy), which is astonishingly entertaining -- he not only kept a detailed journal, he retained most of his official telegraphs and letters, both sent and received. He was, of course, a close friend of U.S. Grant (one of my personal heroes), and on several occasions met with Abraham Lincoln (another of my personal heroes -- probably tops the list, in fact). Well, anyway -- before I get into retelling the whole Civil War -- I end up reading only about 12-15 hours a week, some of which overlaps my writing time. And I spend around 4 hours a week reading and posting on various forums and blogs (probably has something to do with the discussion immediately previous), half or so overlapping my writing time.

 

Sherman was an astounding badass, as was Grant, and with Lincoln they make this amazing trifecta of awesome people who just understood how to win the Civil War where no one else quite did. All very interesting people to read about.

 

Mind if I inquire into two things:
1) 70 hour weeks equate to about how many words for you?
2) What all projects/books/etc. are you working on?

 

just wanted to say Mr. Stover is an awesome writer, and kept me reading till the very end on his ROTS novelisation (which is hard to do with EU, for me )

keep writing!

 

Charn --

Thanks. Though a novelization is not, strictly, EU, RotS is probably closer to it than any. Much appreciated.

PA_P --

Usually around 15,000 words a week. Theoretically, it should be over twenty thousand words a week, because my goal is to produce 3000 words a day. However, one of the unfortunate features of my illness is that I very rarely go more than a week at a time between attacks, and the attacks pretty well shut me down -- at least at the peak, which can last three days.

It's worth noting, however, that I'm working on a tie-in from an approved outline, so about 75% of the necessary Deep Thinking is already done. Actually, I consider a detailed outline to be about half the total work of writing a novel. It usually doesn't work out that way, time-wise (more like a quarter to a third), because an outline holds up to the writing of the story about as long as a battle plan holds up to meeting the enemy. The map, as they say, is not the territory.

Projects:

I'm writing another tie-in (which is already late), and then I'll be putting together the (presumably) last Caine book while I develop some non-SF projects that might make a bit more money.

 

Any real hope that the next Caine book won't be the last?

 

I was merely responding to your question. I don't feel many people are willing to limit their opinion to a possibility - hence the extreme positions and ongoing arguments in which Vergere's intent is a crucial factor. I didn't mean in say that is how I looked at it in terms of Traitor. So no, I don't mean what I wrote in terms of my own thinking. I should add that I do have a rather rigid view relative to certain legal doctrines (and the underlying rationales), which definitely comes into play when I interpret some of Vergere's words and actions.

I agree. Interestingly, it works the same way when one rigidly acribes an admirable motive to Vergere.

Let us be clear; I love them.

In terms of Traitor - yes we do. However, interpreting the evidence leads to differing opinions relative to her intent.