The One Where Voss Shares Too Much

(Sorry. Couldn't resist the Friends reference.)

The ground is covered in a sheet of snow, I have four half-drunk bottles of wine in my kitchen, and I keep scribbling out 2015 and correcting it to 2016. Seems like an average New Year to me. Although I’m really hoping not. I’m hoping for a kick-ass New Year this time around, and it appears to not be sucking totally right now (Knock on wood.).

Now, I’m going to give a hat tip to the elephant in the room before I continue on with things that are a little more fun. The third Evenstad Media book is coming, I promise. There was a bit of a snafu on the production side of things, so it’s going to be a bit delayed. Good news for anyone who needs to catch up, but bad news for anyone who’s been waiting for this one to release, so I do apologize. At the very latest, it’ll be out by mid-February, but a lot sooner if I get my way.

So, what about the year going forward? Well, Evenstad four is also on the docket, though I’m keeping it pretty well under my hat right now. Details will come when we get closer to the actual release date for that one (Some time this summer, unless gremlins gum up the works on this one, too. Here’s hoping not.). And, with The King Jester Trilogy totally finished at long last, I’ll be able to give some more focus to other ideas. Old ideas. Pretty ideas.

If you’ve been here for a while with me, you might remember the odd mention of Rings of Treachery here and there over the years. Well, it still exists, but I’ve vowed that I’m going to put it out this year, come hell or high water. In the interest of full disclosure, it’s currently out on submission with a publisher, so I should hear back within a few months… hopefully. If that works out, then I might have to bend a little on my schedule. Let’s say ‘published or contracted’ this year instead, yeah?

After that, depending on the phases of the moons and what the chicken intestines tell me (Or, you know, whatever I feel like), I could pick up a number of other projects. I have an old book about puppets that’s been weighing on my mind lately (Though that may just be because the puppet army is taking over Radcon this year…). Or I might turn to something a little less well-formed and see where that leads me, in the end. It’s really open. That’s what happens when a series closes off. Something that’s sort of filled your attention for months on end is finally gone, and you begin to see past it to what you can do next. Completely the opposite of reading a series. Then you just sort of feel lost and hungry for more books that don’t exist.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I’ll also be picking up on writing short stories again so I can spread tiny versions of my writing far and wide. Kind of like a plague, but slightly less deadly. Very slightly.

And when it comes to things in a non-writing sense, I’ve made some decisions about the year ahead as well. The main one is to have less anger and negativity. I tend to get rather upset with people, but it does me no good. So I’m working on it. Not to say I’ll turn all peaceful—anger is still an emotion and it’s still useful—but I’ll be more careful with how it comes out, and evaluate it more. See if it’s doing anything, or if it’s just causing me pain.

I’m also going to return to some of my other passions (This is where the part when the sharing begins. First and last warning.). I consider 2015 the year where I sort of got lost. There was really a lot of turmoil going on in my psyche at that point. I’d put back on all the weight I’d lost and shot back over 300 pounds. I wasn’t reading. I was even angrier than usual. I’d just moved away from most of my friends and family (It was really a good decision, but still. It’s hard no matter what.). I was readjusting, and things just started to drop off. I wasn’t reading anymore. I wasn’t singing anymore. I hadn’t played trombone in months and months. And eventually, that started to encroach on my writing. I hated doing it.

Eventually, I figured that I hated doing the actual writing work because I wasn’t doing anything else for myself. I used to say ‘If I’m not singing, then I know that something’s wrong.’ Except I ignored that advice and kept digging through the writing. The more I did it without anything else going on, the more I just hated doing it. And when I hated it, I hated myself a little more. The writing didn't suffer, just me.

Well, suffice it to say that’s over and done with, now. I’m not a New Year’s resolution kind of person, but I made some this year. Read more. Sing more. Make time for things that I’m passionate about. I still haven’t gotten around to belly dancing with any regularity again (Working on it.) and my trombone has only been out of the case once or twice in the past few weeks (And one of those times was to clean and oil it, so…), but it’s going to come. I’m determined not to fall into the Swamp of Sadness again this year.

Stupid horse…

So that’s my uncomfortable level of sharing. How about you? Are you taking 2016 as a chance to get shit back on track, or are you just going to continue to rock the socks off life? Let me know.

Voss

Kids

“I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!”

Sorry. Broadway moment. I'm talking about using kids as tools in our writing. Okay, that sounds really bad, but that's what it really is. Little kids are great tools to provide dialogue, get your more mature characters thinking, and provide more internal conflict. Plus kids provide the cute factor for the reader, and they make your characters care about someone that can't take care of him/herself. And putting kids in dangerous, potentially lethal situations, while a pretty cheap emotional ploy, works.

But I'm not here to talk about putting kids in dangerous situations. Well, maybe a little—I'm not above manipulative writing on occasion. When I started thinking about this post, I was thinking more about that old(ish) show, 'Kids Say the Darndest Things.' It didn't happen very often, of course, but on occasion the kids on that show would say something very apt, or something that would just make an adult stop. It's because kids are innocent, and don't really know those unspoken societal laws we old fogies have ingrained in us. When confronted with that childlike honesty, how your characters respond is a quick and cheap way to show us a serious part of their personality.

They can also increase conflict in a very serious manner, especially when you have a romance or action-based plot. Think about it. If your romantic interest has a kid and your main character is reluctant about children, you have instantaneous conflict, and a chance to soften the main character's personality through the course of the plot. In action-based books, unless your main character is a heartless asshole, when you somehow or another put the kid in danger, your characters are going to have to go out of their way to keep the young one safe from the marauding demons or what have you.

Now, when you do put kids in dangerous situations, don't waste that reader reaction, either. One of the easiest things to do is make your reader hate someone or something for trying to harm the little kid. As soon as, say, your evil sorcerer tries to sacrifice a child (or, better yet, a schoolhouse full of children) to the Nameless Dark One for ultimate power or something, your reader is going to call him an asshole and want revenge.

So yes, when it comes to literature, children are really good multitask tools. Simple as that.

Voss