Introduction
Day 14 of Writing
My name is Geoffrey Williams and I have been a writer my entire life. My earliest works were done in pictograms on the wall with fingerpaint. In elementary school I wrote on paper with pen. In college I wrote with a Selectric typewriter. Shortly after graduation I began writing on the TRS Color Computer. When the Amiga computer came out, I used it to write, and what I wrote mostly was about the amazing things you could do with this computer. This established me as a technology writer. Technology and writing have long gone hand in hand for me.
This blog covers the writing process for the novel, The Relentless. It has a lot of tech in it. Each entry talks about the writing process, and the second part covers what my wife Belle and I are experiencing during the pandemic.
The Relentless is a science fiction action spy thriller. One of the central features is that it turns the normal tropes for these genres on their heads. It has humor, and has fun with this concept, but it is not parody. I love and respect these genres. I’ve read them since I was in my early teens.
This blog will explore the science that the various high-tech gadgets are based on, where ideas come from, how and why the book is structured the way it is, how the virus outbreak changes the process of writing the novel, the challenges of writing a novel with sometimes severe neurological difficulties, and some of the personal challenges my wife and I have faced while sheltering at home.
It was becoming clear that we were facing a crises that could well lead to disaster. I wanted to do something challenging that would take my mind off of things.
While I have read many books on writing fiction, and have had training in screenwriting, writing a science fiction novel is a new experience. I am learning a lot about the process. I want to remember what I am learning, so I am writing it all down and thought I might as well share in case anyone is interested. I am writing this quickly so it won’t be as polished as something intended for more formal publication.
I won a regional fiction writing award in my teens, but I chose not to become a fiction writer. The problem with being a fiction writer is that you have to write it first, shop it around, and hope that you get paid.
Instead, I spent my writing career writing non-fiction across a broad array of categories. In non-fiction, you get an assignment, you write it, and they pay what they agreed to pay you (most of the time). There is a lot more stability in non-fiction if you are trying to make a living at writing and enjoy eating regularly.
I began getting published with entertainment related articles, as I was working full time as a stage performer. I wrote a book on magic that made money. Writing became more of a profession when I began working as a tech journalist. I did some work as a photojournalist, did lots of interviews, did some travel writing, some script writing (for industrials, not movies), wrote hundreds of magazine and on-line articles, and wrote a number of non-fiction books. In fact, I just finished two new books and was prepping the publicity tours, which have now had to be canceled. I also have another book written and going into editing.
I have been working on a number of novels over the last few years, outlining them and working out their structures. As to actually writing them, I kept putting that off. “I’ll begin after I finish the next book,” I kept telling myself. There was always a next book. Now seemed the time to start turning them into actual books. It is a novel virus, after all, so what better time than to begin a novel?
One of the things that I found is helping me the most is my training as an actor and director. I got my degree in theater. As an actor, you have to learn a lot about developing a character. The character in a script comes alive once the actor interprets it, with help from the director. In a novel, the author has to be both actor and director, bringing the character to life using words alone.
I act out a lot of the dialogue to make sure it makes sense for that character. I hear their voices in my head, something I learned to do when learning scripts and totally unrelated to my neurological condition. When I did not have someone to feed me lines I would imagine them speaking in the voice of the actor I was working with in that scene.
Generally, a novel has to get you from point A to point B with a lot of waypoints along the way. That is the big picture, but how you get from A to B depends upon the characters. They have to drive the narrative instead of you forcing them to do things that don’t make sense for them. Figuring out the characters was the very first thing I did after I had my big picture concept.
I had always been taught that once you get to know your characters, they begin writing themselves. I just thought that was one of those things people said. I did spend a lot of time imagining my characters and getting to know them as people. I am somewhat amazed that it is true. As I am writing, I know what they need to say, but I just let them say it in their own voice. It does feel like they are writing themselves. It is kind of thrilling to see them come alive.
I previsualize a scene in my mind, and sometimes I will work out a storyboard for it, which is typical of the way you figure out how to shoot a scene in the movies. This is where my background as a 3D animator became very useful. I learned Lightwave when it was originally bundled with the Video Toaster, and have used a lot of different 3D software over the years. It made me better at visualizing scenes in my head, and it was always thrilling to see the final version before my eyes that had once been only in my mind.
I have very good visualization skills and can see the scene in my mind in detail and move the elements around. I watch the scene in my mind over and over again, tweaking and trying to make it better. Once I can see the entire scene, then I just describe it. I know it well enough that the scene seems real to me and more like I am just describing something I actually observed. It is a similar process to journalism in that you need to describe an incident that you observed in a clear but interesting way.
What’s Up With Us
I have been working on writing The Relentless for two weeks now. I began formally writing the novel on February 20th. Yes, of course, I dressed up. It was formal. Actually, I did not dress at all, as I began writing from bed, which is where I have written almost everything so far.
I have an often disabling neurological condition, so writing from bed is not that unusual for me. Our central heating went out, and because everything was so uncertain, we decided to hold off getting it repaired. After all, this is Southern California where we seldom even turn it on. Maybe that was not the best choice, since we have had a lot of cold and rainy weather for the last few weeks. Changes in the barometer, along with stress, are triggers for my symptoms, including a lot of pain. Lying in bed with my laptop was the warmest and most comfortable option. Sometimes my wife would join me in bed and we would bang on our keyboards together.
The first reported case of Covid-19 here in California was on January 25th. At that point we were still a few weeks from going on high alert. On February 5th, Santa Clara County became the first to declare a local health emergency. We started to become more concerned. On Valentine’s Day, San Diego declared a local health emergency. That was a bit closer to home.
By this time we had already begun practicing social distancing. There was a Valentine’s party that upcoming weekend and we had already decided to be prudent and take a pass the week before. A few days ahead of the party, it was cancelled. We stayed home and were Valentine’s together.
We went out to vote on Super Tuesday. The social distancing was not great. Los Angeles County was introducing a new election system. The lines were long. I wonder how many people were exposed during that election.
My wife and I miss going out, but at least we like hanging out with each other. We’ll stay on the safe side and stay clear of others. How long this is going to last I have no idea.
It was clear by the time I started writing The Relentless that things could go very badly in California. Los Angeles declared a local emergency on March 4th, the same day of our first recorded Covid-19 death in California, and the same day Governor Newsom declared a state-wide health emergency. For a population of 40 million, the State of California has just 200 test kits. That is not a good sign.
As to the picture at the top, yes, I do sanitize my phone with anti-bacterial wipes. A lot.