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Month: October 2019

The Pitfalls of Research

It’s probably safe to say that every writer does research. It’s fun! It’s important! It takes a lot of time that could be wasted staring at your (lack of a) plot! This year, for the first time in a while, I’m doing NaNoWriMo. Since I’ve got big gaping holes in my plot that I don’t want to think about, I’ve been doing a lot of research. Alaska. Kayaks. The behavior of moose and orcas. What do rich people do all day? What’s the temperature of Resurrection Bay in June? My NaNovel will be contemporary and not speculative, so there’s a LOT to research, of course. The last time I researched for a contemporary story, in the author notes I left the disclaimer, “KD wishes fervently that she had found more time to research rock-climbing, the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, video production, colleges in Western Pennsylvania, visa requirements, Danbury, Connecticut, Civil War re-enactors, and navy slang, but hopes there are not too many factual errors.” People have interests! Things are done differently in different places! You have to get it as right as you can, or people who are enjoying the story get tossed out of their suspension-of-belief and that sucks. I, personally, hate when it happens to me. I don’t want to do it to anyone else! Of course, then you can run into things like the Tiffany problem. Or how, after reading one story I wrote, people found it impossible to believe that a young man went all…

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The Language Geek Gets Her Latin On

Yep. I’ve added another language. Backing up a bit, I started with Esperanto again, and I am really enjoying it. Getting pretty far on the Duolingo tree. It’s awesome. Many years ago, back when I was constructing a language for one of my novels, Requiem in Blue, I studied Latin a bit as a jumping off point. The language, by the way, is called Reka (R-ee-kah). I still want to get back to it someday. So I’ve always wanted to learn Latin. But Duo didn’t have it…until very recently. So I jumped aboard that train. The trip so far has been really interesting. And a bit challenging. I’m not sure if I’ve reached my limit on learning languages simultaneously, or maybe it’s because I can’t study it every day like I used to because job and life, but it hasn’t been easy. And that’s a bit disconcerting. I mean…I used to be able to pick languages up so easily. French was easy, and Esperanto, for the most part—so far, anyway. Here are some thoughts: 1 The lack of pronouns is just plain weirding me out. Yeah. You can actually drop the pronoun and still have a comprehensible sentence. It’s wild. I always want to add the pronoun because that’s what I am used to. And I’m an editor and a stickler for proper grammar so…yeah. Cue the nervous twitches. 2 The sentence order freaks me out, too. So you can say something like “Erin my name is” and, you guessed…

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Heigh Ho, My Costume’s Ready to Go

Hiya, friends! My convention that I’m cosplaying at is this weekend, and I’m happy to report that, at least costume-wise, I’m ready to go! I did a dry-run of it for a few hours today, which went decently well. I highly recommend dry-running any complicated costume you might be thinking of doing. Saves you problems later on. (I learned this the hard way when I did my most complicated costume to date, Titania from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. This costume included me making boots, armor, fake belts, a lined coat, etc. and involved wig styling. But I didn’t try it out before the con, and ended up only lasting about three hours. I was too hot, my wig was too heavy and wouldn’t stay on even with it being pinned in place, I couldn’t wear a bag because of the chest/back/shoulder armor, I could barely sit comfortably…) (And hence I have never done an armored costume again.) I wore my boots for about eight hours. They hurt a bit near the end, but not too bad. I almost spent a lot more time on my feet than I typically do at the con, so not too worried. I wore my FX contacts for about an hour and a half. I have issues with contacts–my eyes started rejecting them when I was 24–but they felt okay. A little dry, though, so probably worth it to invest in some re-hydrating drops before the con. The biggest issue is that they don’t stay…

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Outwitting the Inner Critic

If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll know that the Inner Critic is my worst enemy as a writer. That’s the little voice in your head that says “This story is so derivative, the dialogue is wooden, your characters have no personality, and you don’t write enough to be a Real Writer anyway.” (Your mileage may vary.) Periodically I find a way to fight it. Then I forget what I did that worked. So here’s my latest attempt to write down what worked in hopes of cementing it into my brain (or at least referring to it next time I need it). And if it helps you too, so much the better… Some context: Last month, I went off on a week-long writing retreat and took some short stories that I wanted to revise. Normally, for me, revising is a great way to get the Inner Critic to come out and play, I mean stomp all over me. (Ironic for someone whose day job is actually editing, but there you go.) I can write first drafts (sometimes) and I can tinker with line edits (usually). But if a story needs anything bigger, I just…freeze up and have no idea where to start, or else write endless brainstorming notes and never get any closer to having a reshaped story that I’m happy with. This time, neither of those things happened. Here’s what I did. Start sessions with handwriting. I brought along a book of writing exercises/prompts and had them…

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Superstition’s Night by Kit Campbell

“…and they reached the safety of the light, and all was well.” Amara turned off her comp-pad’s screen and placed the device on the side of Braedon’s berth. She stood, straightening his blankets, before bending to press a kiss to his forehead. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.” She retrieved the comp-pad and headed toward the corridor.  “Mom?” Braedon called. There was a little tremor to his voice that gave her immediate pause.  She returned to his berth, sinking onto the blankets beside him. “What is it?” “The story–why were they so afraid of the dark? What was in it?” Amara chuckled lightly, tucking the blankets tighter around her child. “Oh, dearest, there’s nothing in the dark. There never was. But this is an old story, one your grandfather used to tell me his grandfather told him, back when they were still on Earth. They didn’t know any better, back then. The dark was scary merely because they couldn’t see what was there, not because anything was.” She paused, gazing out the porthole at the stars beyond, the edges of the asteroid they inhabited just barely visible from this angle. “Besides, it’s never dark here. Not when the light of the universe surrounds us.” Braedon nodded slightly, smiling up at her. “Thanks, Mom.” He rolled onto his side, and Amara took her leave. Poor child. Maybe the story had been too scary for him. But it was good to look at older stories, to see what humanity had…

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