Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
November 26, 2017

Tuesday evening at B&N  

Where were ye . . . home, ill or preparing for Thanksgiving company? Working late hours or traveling? Seven were at B&N, gathered around a lone table, helping their colleagues become better writers and better storytellers. Here’s some of what was said:

Larry Sommers (chapter 2, untitled novel) . . . Tracy and others cautioned about professorial overkill by my omniscient narrator. Jerry and Jack had some great observations about the operation of steamboats and the configuration of levees along the Mississippi in the 19th century. Mike was quite taken by the instrospective material in the back part of the chapter. There were some good ideas for wording as well. Thanks, everybody!

Tracey Gemmell (1-page synopsis, More or Less Annie) . . . General agreement that the new one-page (plus 27 words, according to Jack!) was a big improvement over the last version. There were some suggestions for rewording a couple of sections. Overall, the voice and tone were considered appropriate and more ‘Tracey-like’. No one was bothered by the removal of mention of several characters. Many thanks for all the help and a Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Mike Austin (chapters 22.2 and 23, Riding with the Reed Gang) . . .  I received a lot of encouraging feedback from everyone about “Reed Gang.” Some of the discussion revolved around the shifting POV that I’ve been using, and whether or not it’s working. There was also discussion about adding some humor. Jack suggested that instead of a pistol Edgar should just have a turnip in his pocket. “Hey Edgar! is that a turnip in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” But seriously, yes, there could be some lightening up throughout. I appreciate all the comments. Thanks everyone!

Bob Kralapp (short story, rewrite, “Faith”) . . .

Jack Freiburger (short story, part 6, “Jesus Walked into the IHOP”) . . .   What to say?  Part VI read the last two weeks found Jesus shorn of old friends and searching for them while the Jesus cult collapses under the pressure of the early Christian persecutions.
A couple reviewers noted that the chapter continued to be readable, which is quite heartening as the effort is to create a biography in which the main character has an historical arc in which the reader can find themself invested.

Jerry Peterson (short stories, “Talking to the Wall”, “Pumpkin Wars”, and “The Multipliers”)    . . . Jack suggested Jerry channel Jean Shepherd for ways to expand on the damage done by the pumpkin cannoneering in “Pumpkin Wars.” Said Mike, he would have run to the kitchen and thrown up in the sink had he just learned he was the father of twins and was going to have to get a bigger (and better) car to replace his dead one, suggesting another way to end “The Multipliers” story. Tracey said “The Multipliers” was a fall-on-the-floor-laughing story, but the title doesn’t tip off readers to the humor that’s coming. She suggested a dozen better titles.

Who’s up next

December 5
Millie Mader (???)
Amber Boudreau (???)
Tracey Gemmell (chapters, More or Less Annie)
Katy Sullivan (part 5, “The Night We Met”)
Kashmira Sheth and Amit Trivedi (chapters)
John Schneller (chapter, Final Stronghold)

December 19
Larry Sommers (chapter 3, untitled novel)
Paul Wagner (chapter 2, Rise of the Serpent)
Mike Austin (chapter, Riding with the Reed Gang)
Bob Kralapp (short story, part 3, “Faith”)
Jack Freiburger (short story, part 7,”Jesus Walked into the IHOP”)
Jerry Peterson (???)

And speaking of our December meetings

We will be at the Alicia Ashman Branch Library. That’s in the shopping center at the corner of Old Sauk Road and High Point Road . . . 733 North Highpoint, should you need the address for your GPS. It’s five minutes away from Barnes & Noble.

We will be in the big meeting room both evenings. We can party while we work, so feel free to bring cookies and candy and non-alcoholic grog.

Hail the new editor
Tracey Gemmell <takes on the Writer’s Mail editorship for December. Send her your good stuff that you’d like her to share with the group.

Writing contest to be a part of our next Fifth Tuesday (Jan. 30)

It’s your opportunity to win a critique of the first 50 pages of your novel, nonfiction book, or poetry chapbook, the critique to be provided by Kelly Harms, a published writer who will be our contest judge.

First, of course, you have to write a story, an animal story. The point of view is yours to select. For example, your story could be a dog story told by a dog. Or it could be told by you, a cat, or a fictional character.

500 words max.

There is a fee to enter the contest . . . $10. The winner gets the pot of money and must spend it – all of it – taking the judge out to dinner. It’s over that dinner at which Kelly will discuss her critique.

Kelly is the author of The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane published by Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press. The publisher will bring out her second novel, The Matchmakers of Minnow Bay, next year, on August 9.

Kelly was an editor for HarperCollins and a literary agent at the Jane Rotrosen Agency before moving to Madison where she now lives and writes.

She will announce the winner at our January 30th Fifth Tuesday.

Andy Weir brings out his second novel

Andy Weir made his name and writing fortune with his sci-fi novel The Martian in 2011. Now he has Artemis out, released last week.

Here’s an interview with him that ran in this week’s Goodreads Newsletter:

With his first novel, The Martian, Andy Weir hit the jackpot. The book, first published serially on his website, became a huge bestseller. Praised for its realistic science, it was then made into a popular, critically acclaimed movie starring Matt Damon as stranded—but determined—astronaut Mark Watney.

How do you follow that up? If you’re Weir, you come up with Artemis, a thriller featuring Saudi-born Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara, a courier and smuggler in the titular lunar city. All Jazz wants to do is make a few extra bucks—sorry, slugs (the local currency)—and improve her lot in life. Instead she becomes entangled in a plot that could endanger the entire settlement.

Weir spoke to Goodreads interviewer Todd Leopold from his home in California. The following is an edited version of the interview.

Goodreads: Where did Artemis come from?

Andy Weir: I wanted to see what a city on the moon would be like. Then I started thinking about what life would be like in the city, and then I started trying to come up with a plot to take place in it.

The first plot was a totally different idea. Jazz was a character in that plot—she was an extremely tertiary character. I didn’t like that story, so I came up with an entirely new concept and idea, and it also wasn’t very good. Jazz was more prominent but still very much a secondary character.

I realized what I enjoyed about these concepts was Jazz, so why don’t I try to make a story just about her, and that’s what became Artemis.

GR: Was it different having a publisher giving you a deadline instead of putting it out on your own website?

AW: There was pressure for Artemis, but it wasn’t the publisher—I pressured me. I worked on a book called “Zhek” for about a year. I got about 70,000 words into that book, and it just wasn’t good. I talked to the publisher and said I want to hit the big red reset button. They were very, very accommodating, which was great. It was hard to throw away 70,000 words, but it wasn’t coming together.

GR: What were the challenges in writing Jazz?

AW: Jazz was going to be this really minor character, so I wasn’t thinking I had to delve into the inner workings of this person. As I went through revisions and she became more prominent, I couldn’t imagine her any other way than a female of Saudi descent. So rather than spend the next several months in fighting my gut instinct, I’m just going to roll with it and do my best.

I did run the manuscript by as many women as I could trust. I got their feedback and made changes. They say you should never read your reviews, but I do, and a lot of people are complaining about the female voice. So I guess I have a ways to go before I can write a truly convincing female lead, but I did give it my best shot.

Jazz is actually based on my own personality. [The Martian’s] Mark Watney is the ideal—he’s what I wish I were. Jazz is closer to the real me. Doesn’t always make the right moral call, doesn’t always make the right decisions, pretty smart but doesn’t always take the wise course of action.

GR: Tell me more about Artemis.

AW: I started off with the economic model. Every city on Earth exists because it has some economic reason to exist. So what is the economic start of [Artemis]? The answer I came up with was tourism. Then we have to build a lunar city, [and] we’re going to make as much of it out of local materials as possible. The moon is incredibly rich in aluminum. Eighty-four percent of the rocks are anorthite, a mineral that’s made up of aluminum, silicon, calcium, and oxygen. So you can smelt that to get the aluminum out, and the oxygen comes out as a byproduct. So you get aluminum to make your moon base and a bunch of oxygen to fill it with.

Smelting aluminum takes an enormous amount of energy, far more than you could get from a solar farm. So they’re going to need reactors. So I get two Hyperion Gen4 reactors—that’s a real product that exists—they weigh about 15 metric tons each, and they produce 27 megawatts of power. [It] works out to be about $5 million to put on the surface of the moon. If you’re building a luxury hotel, that’s well within the realm of what businesses will spend on that stuff. Then I looked at the economics of resort towns. In those towns you have hotel-casinos, high-end shops, and then behind it you have crappy neighborhood areas where the people who work at those areas live. So Artemis would be like that.

GR: Do you think people will inhabit Mars, another planet, or the moon?

AW: Until ordinary people can travel to and from the moon, it will be really expensive, so there will not be an economic reason to put a city on the moon. And other than tourism, I’ve never seen a sci-fi explanation for why there would be a city on the moon. You could send robots to mine it. Helium-3? [Also] robots. So being able to move something back and forth to the moon or Mars has to be cheap, and that has to happen first. So I’m going to say 60 or 70 years before we have a settlement on the moon and much, much longer before we have a settlement on Mars.

GR: Since you are so precise in the science, do you find yourself pressured to always be correct? Are you worried people will call you out?

AW: It’s important to me to get it right. And people calling me out is totally fair game. I say, This is scientifically accurate, and they’re like, “OK, let’s see.” The only reason I’m subject to that scrutiny is I claim to be scientifically accurate. But I like it. Challenge accepted.

GR: Many teachers have asked about what you think of your books being used in science classes.

AW: I love that The Martian is used in so many classes. But Artemis is really a caper story. While I would love it if it could be used in education, I don’t think it’s as suited to it as The Martian was. It’s less problem-solution, problem-solution, problem-solution, math-math-math and more caper-heist-oh crap. So I doubt teachers will get much use out of it.

GR: What are you reading now? What are some of the books that influenced you?

AW: The most recent thing I read was Paradox Bound by Peter Clines. I really liked it. My holy trinity of authors is Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. If I had to pick one book, I’d say I, Robot by Asimov, but the real answer would depend on my mood, what day it is, whatever. I also really like Tunnel in the Sky by Heinlein.

GR: Finally, many writers with big hits early in their careers are unable to rise to the challenge of creating again. How did you overcome the pressure of succeeding The Martian?

AW: Well, it remains to be seen! But having a success like The Martian right out of the gate means that it’s almost guaranteed that my next book won’t be as beloved. There’s a good chance I could write 20 more books and people will still say The Martian is the best one. But I have to accept realistic goals. If people say, “It’s not as good as The Martian, but it’s still good,” I’ll take that as a win.