Inspiring Women: Martha Wells, Fearless Author

This is a post in the series, Inspiring Women.

To kick off my new blog series, I've chosen someone who is and has been a big influence on my writing: Martha Wells.

Ms. Wells writes Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her first published novel, The Element of Fire, is a total immersion into a new world and a kingdom called Ile-Rien. Her second novel, Death of the Necromancer (which was nominated for a Nebula) is set a few hundred years after her first novel.

These novels are brilliant in ways that I admire. Not only is Ms. Wells willing to relegate the characters of her first novel to mere murky figures of the past in her second novel, she is also willing to make difficult choices about the city, a-la Godzilla running rampant through your beautiful Sim City creation. In Death of the Necromancer, Ile-Rien is a mixture of new technology and stagnation. Not to mention a few of the characters who are odes to Sherlock Holmes characters, but I don't want to give too much away.

To round out the Ile-Rien saga, Ms. Wells wrote a trilogy that takes place several years after Death of the Necromancer. Talk about fearless, Ms. Wells is willing to bomb the city relentlessly and use it as a backdrop for a war that spans not just continents, but worlds. This trilogy is aptly named The Fall of Ile-Rien.

A rare still shot of the carnage the fearless Martha Wells wreaks in her fiction.

In between the Ile-Rien novels, Ms. Wells has written many stand-alone novels, all excellent, especially City of Bones.

In her newest series, Ms. Wells is fearless once again. She has created another new world, and one species in particular named the Raksura (the series is eponymous). It takes a masterful touch to write about a species so different from humans, and yet so compelling and relatable. Once again, I dislike giving too much away about any creative endeavor, so just let me say that one of the joys associated with reading about the Raksura is to see what customs they have that are wildly different than human customs. The Raksura are fascinatingly and satisfyingly alien, yet within that difference is a kernel of similarity.

Ms. Wells has a blog, and a website. She also tweets and her handle is @marthawells1.

As a fearless writer of Speculative Fiction, Ms. Wells' fiction is difficult to resist. Her style has inspired me to be more fearless in my own writing.

Author Martha Wells
Website
Blog
Twitter

My New Novel: The Quays of Lac-Carge

My new novel is now available!

I'm thrilled with the cover. It conveys the feeling of the world I've built;
a gaslamp/steampunk era where magic still lives.

Lac-Carge is the capital of a nation on the brink of a new age. Gaslamps light the city streets, and sandusk pellets propel motorboats and the fledgeling balloon industry. Yet underneath this shiny new technology, magic still lives.

This is a world where Alexander was born into privilege and great wealth, only to have it stripped away by an insatiable queen. Four years later, he's conspiring with the quay workers at Lac-Carge's busy shipping port. Their goal? To wrest control of the quays back from the queen.

Yet no one realizes the depths to which the queen will sink. Not only is she intent upon keeping the property she stole from Alexander, she is also scheming against her own daughter, the heir to the throne.

Enter Alexander's old flame, now a daring aviatrix; and his boyhood schoolmate, a receded thaumaturge whose powers may not have receded as much as he claims. Together, they must save Lac-Carge and its princess from the queen's army of walking dead.

Join Alexander, Chloe and Hugh as they battle against everything the queen and her thaumaturgical allies can muster.

Join my mailing list to be kept up to date and to receive a free short story!

Happenings

What's happening in my life

A new novel

I'm putting a few final flourishes on a new novel, to be published next week! It's a steampunk/gaslamp fantasy, entitled The Quays of Lac-Carge. More details to come soon.

Travel: My Inspiration

We're getting ready to go to Yosemite for about three weeks in October. Despite living in California for several years, I've not been to Yosemite yet. I'm so excited to see what other people rave about. I'm an avid hiker, although I definitely feel content to stand on terra firma to watch rock climbers ascend sheer cliffs.

This is a scene from one of my favorite hiking trail near Oak Glen, CA.
I hope to be seeing a lot of the russet California autumn colors soon.

Current writing

I'm currently working on two novels at the same time. I've never done this before, but it's really working out. One is a science fiction novel with lots of space travel, and the other is fantasy with an alternate history twist. In general, my writing is split pretty evenly between the two genres. In the past, when writing a fantasy novel I'd usually stop in the middle to write at least one science fiction short story, and vice versa.

Although some people who this happens to may say that they get tired of one genre and have to move to the other, I prefer to think of it as I love both so much that I can't stay away from either one for long.

This time, as I work on two novels at once, I'm finding it so motivating to be able to go from one to the other. As of right now, though, I'm really going strong on the science fiction novel, and if it continues as it's going now I'll finish it before I return to the fantasy novel.

Saving It All For Later...

...or, the Holding Your Cards Too Close To Your Chest Syndrome

Pocket Aces by John Morgan.
 Licensed under CC by 2.0. Edited from original.

When do you let out a choice detail in your writing? When it's absolutely needed, or when the reader wants it?

In my opinion, it's a fine line. A fine line that I sometimes fall off to one side or the other.

Sometimes a story does need some exposition at the beginning. Other times, the story demands that the details be portioned out carefully (mysteries and thrillers are classic examples).

"Readers want dirt, but they also want you to do the hard work of spreading it out and working it into their lawn for them."

One tendency I have noticed in my previous writing self is that when I had a unique idea or detail, such as a villain, I would sometimes try to show its effects well before I showed what it actually was. I used to think this was clever, or suspenseful. It does add suspense. Yet, my tendency was to reveal the details of that villain during the denouement. The problem with this strategy is that the denouement already has so much going on that the details I'd so carefully hoarded were somewhat lost in the excitement.

An assignment I've given myself in a novel I'm editing now, is to put those exciting villainous details into the narrative much earlier than I would naturally want to. There is no point in wasting my ideas I've so meticulously crafted.

All stories need structure. A truckload of details can't be dumped onto the front lawn of your story without consequences. Yet that same truckload of details also can't be hidden in the neighborhood for the frustrated reader to suss out. I guess where I'm going with this filthy metaphor is, that readers want dirt, but they also want you to do the hard work of spreading it out and working it into their lawn for them.

Where do you fall on the great reveal/hoard divide?

Ephemera: Where the Story Begins

The germination of story—where does it begin?

How does your story come to you? Does it gallop in out of nowhere?

Hangaku Gozen by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Does it begin with an image, a flash of insight, a half-remembered dream?

Viking Woman Warrior by Hans Splinter.
Licensed under CC by 2.0. Cropped from original.

Does it begin when you are passionate, relaxed, ecstatic, miserable?

Does this describe your mood when you've thought of a new story idea?

These are most common ways that the magic of story germination happens for me:

• A storyline stays in my conscious mind from a dream or a half-dream

• A complex idea pops into my relaxed, contented mind, seemingly from nowhere

• A striking image will inspire a character or a situation

A perfect example of this phenomenon is the story J.K. Rowling tells of how Harry Potter popped, fully formed, into her mind. That's the magic of inspiration at work, one which built a real-world story empire.

All of these flashes or situations need narration built upon them, which becomes the conscious mind's work. After I've received these inspirations, I love to let them germinate in my mind for a few days before I even write them down. While they're still thoughts in my head, I feel like the story has infinite possibilities. Writing the words down seem like they take on a permanence that concretizes them into a certain shape.

I can explain how I get inspiration. Yet, these flashes of inspiration themselves are the magic—the ephemera, if you will—that is inexplicable. It's the unconscious mind at work in ways that we can never predict or control.

I'd love to hear about how your story germinations take place.

Small Challenges

Why Challenging Other Writers Can Be Great For Productivity

WiFi at Moulin de la Galette by Mike Licht.
 Licensed under CC by 2.0. Thought bubble added to original.

Are you in the middle of a project (or even at the beginning of one) and you just can't seem to get yourself into a writing groove?

Enlist your writing friends to help by challenging them to a word-count goal! Say, 1,000 words per day for one week, or perhaps 2 hours of editing time per day... whatever works for your project and your schedule.

Not only will you have the edge of competitiveness added to your work, but you will also have your friend's support and encouragement as you proceed in the challenge.

This can even work cross-discipline, as in, you don't have to both be writers. You can have a goal of 1,000 words per day, and your artist friend can commit to work on her painting for 1 hour per day. Anything goes in the search for inspiration.

Over the past few weeks, I've been distracted by vacation and visiting relatives. To combat my dwindling writing production, I challenged one of my friends. Both of us committed to write 1,000 words a day for one week. We're both doing great. The best part? I'm going to count this blog post as part of my daily word count!

But, you say, what if you're in the middle of a creative person's desert? If you're the only writer you know IRL, you can always find a community of writers online. Try such sites as WritersCafe or Goodreads. Or you could always challenge yourself, and promise yourself a reward at the end of your successful challenge.

For most of us, a challenge will get our competitive nature going, and the more successful days strung together, the less willing we are to break that chain of success. Anything that spurs us to write is a good thing, and sometimes enlisting other writers is the best motivator of all.

Inspiration: It's Everywhere

These are some things that inspire my writing.

Reading

Reading and writing are inextricably linked for me

New books are always being written, thankfully. I am constantly amazed and gratified about how many books there are available in the English language. I feel happiest when I have at least 3 or 4 books in my queue that I am really excited about reading.

Sometimes reading a really great book will inspire my writing intensely.


Travel

Different locations are always inspiring. I love travel, and I love to put my characters into new situations and new landscapes. It's always interesting when they come across something they've never experienced. What will they do? They don't know, and neither do I most of the time!

From the oceans off the west coast of the U.S.A.... 

...to the red southwestern deserts...

...to the verdancy of the east...

...to the grandeur of old European cities, it's all inspiration for me.

After a childhood and early adulthood of no travel, over the last several years I have been lucky enough to have traveled quite a bit. Whenever I do, I keep a part of my mind aware and open for inspiration. It could be anything, from a building with interesting architecture, to someone with an interesting personality, to a grand landscape. Anything is fodder for me.


Fellow Book Lovers

Fellow book lovers unite!

Every time I can talk with someone about books (either virtually or in person) I feel great inspiration. There's nothing like finding a fellow book lover whose life is informed and enriched by fiction.


For me, inspiration can be found anywhere. These are three of my favorites. I'd love to hear about yours.