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Just got back from the weekend Gaslight Gathering convention. A nice little convention in San Diego, CA. The drive form Fiasco Manor was not bad this year. No, major stoppage at San Clemente, and the air current were very favorable, I had a tail wind the whole way there.

The gathering was in the Handlery hotel on hotel circle north. Parking for check-in is always a hassle at the hotel. They can only handle four cars checking in at one time and there is no place for anyone else checking-in to park.

The attendance was good. The crowd was very friendly. At the last gathering I was desperate to find out how authors could find Beta Readers. This year I wasn’t in such a panic, but I’m an author and an endless fount of questions.

The vendor area was smaller this year. If you are going to sell clothes bring larger sizes. I’ve got to lose weight.

I did buy several books. As an author I value those who hustle in getting out there and selling their books. Buying their book also gives me an excuse to badger the author with questions. This is quality, one-on-one, face time with someone who is dealing with the same problems I’m dealing with.

I was admiring the large lens of a professional photographer that was at the gathering. Jake Klein and I got to talking about the lens. It’s only f 2.8 but it is a lot of glass and heavy if you have to hold it for a time. He just sent his daughter off to college and she told him to go live life. So, he has sold most of what he had and bought a mobile home. With it he is starting a tour of the country. He’s a friend of Doc Phineas and when the Doc heard he was hitting the road and would be heading for San Diego he suggested, as Doc would, that he stop by the gathering.

Jake said he would post pictures of the gathering, much better than I could take, at www.photogtravels.com. You can also follow him via his web site as he photographs his way across the country.

One of his suggestions was to get a Canon 430 EX flash (refurbished)(I use canon cameras, so the flash works with my cameras). It’s small but throws out a good amount of light. He also had some suggestions for closing down the aperture of the lens (called stopping down) to take better flash photos.

It may not have been about writing but it was good information.

Picked up a couple of books from chief inspector Erasmus Drake and Dr. Sparky McTrowell. Of course I extracted my pound of information from them. These authors are good. I was impressed with the plots they generated. Even when I do it myself, it’s hard to figure out where someone get such a good ideas. I’ve had an audio show broadcaster asking me for short audio, like old time radio broadcasts, scripts and this may help me generate some. I find writing short pieces hard. I use to write short stories for magazines (I got a lot of rejection slips for my efforts). Now I find it hard to write short works.

I have a soft spot for brass. I picked up a small cast metal octopus from the vendors Rae Wolf Designs. I took it over to Shannon at Gears & Roebuck where she painted it to look like brass. One of these days I will get the foundry set up so I could cast my own designs, but that would take away from my writing. I did get a lot of information from Gear & Roebuck about how to color plastic to get it to look like metal. Metal is good, metal is durable, I would build with metal if I had a choice, but metal is heavy, very heavy and very expensive.

They had a presentation with a hand puppet. A fun little show. Got some information on puppets and a couple of pointers on the attitude of characters. You need goons in your writing, not cardboard characters (even if they are part cardboard).

I had a good conversation with Roller Derby enthusiast and Steampunk writer Aidan Caisse. He’s turning out books and I bought one. We talked about roller derby and writing. Got some good information from him. He was working on a tablet during the quiet periods and by stealing minutes here and there he managed to turn out a chapter for his next book.

The ice cream social was good. I like ice cream so there is not much not to like. I got to telling old sea stories to a very young kid. The kid was into computers and Tesla coils. This kid could go places.

The talk on casting objects was way more popular than the presenter thought it would be. He ran out of corn starch that he uses for a hardening agent for the molds he demonstrated how to make. They had to bring in several more tables for all the attendees. The smell of vinegar was strong while everyone was making their mold. A few coin cells and some plastic that melts in hot water (Instamold) and you could be turning out glowing objects by the dozens. When I got back home I found that the Instamold, he was making the finial item out of, is sold as a material to make molds. Great Steampunk idea to use something for the opposite of what it was made for. The presenter used RTV that you can buy from the hardware store, (it has to be 100% silicone RTV), to make the mold and the Instamold to make the object. His secret sauce was to add corn starch to the RTV to get it to harden in a reasonable time. The RTV needs water to make it harden and the RTV forms a skin that stops water from getting to the bottom and center of a blob of RTV. The corn starch has water inside it, so it hardens the RTV all the way through quickly.

I will have more in the next blog.

Stay strong, write on.

Professor Hyram Voltage

To find an idea for a book you need a map.

When I was a kid (I was never a little kid) I went out into the desert to find treasure. There were lots of stories of lost gold mines and the treasure of De Anaza and I was going to find some. One minor rescue later I was back home without a treasure.

The point, if your looking for something you need to have an idea of what your looking for and you need to do some research for before you start looking. Real treasure hunter look in libraries. Often going to old archives to look for all the information on ship wrecks, robberies, and any information they can find on where treasure may be. They also look at what others have done. Why search places where others have combed over a dozen times.

You don’t go out into the middle of the ocean and drop a submersible and hope to find a sunken ship on the first dive. You start with an idea of where the ship could be then check with sonar.

I’ve come across a wandering writer out here in the middle of the desert.

PV; Mr. Wandering Writer what are you looking for?

WW; How’d you know I was a writer?

PV; You’re caring a laptop, six pencils and seven pens. But I think it was the thesaurus that tipped me off.

WW; Think you’re Sherlock Homes, huh. Why do you think I’m looking for something?

PV; You’re not writing.

WW; Mhum, You haven’t seen an idea around here have you?

PV; What type of idea are you are you looking for.

WW: I need an idea for a book.

PV; There’s several near by.

WW; What? Out here in the middle of nowhere. Quick tell me where.

PV; You’ll need to do some work.

WW; Tell me, I’m desperate.

PV; I’ll have to draw you a map. Now, what type of idea are you looking for?

WW; I told you I’m looking for an idea for a book.

PV; OK, but that’s a little vague. That’s like going out into the desert saying you’re looking for something valuable. There’re bunch of valuable things in the desert, but you got to know what you’re looking for. Have you considered what type of book you’re looking for an idea for?

WW: I’m looking for an idea for a science fiction book.

PV; Better, but there are a lot of science fiction books out there. Is this going to be a stand alone or a series.

WW: I’m going to write a science fiction trilogy.

PV; Great, now I know how big an idea you’re are looking for, but science fiction is a broad genre. What type of science fiction do you like reading, space opera, adventure, mystery, hard, fantasy, space war, or exploration science fiction? What do you like writing?

WW: Hey, hold on, when are you going to tell me how to find an idea for my book? I’m in a hurry.

PV; We’re well on the way. If you just start out brain storming for an idea all your worries about the next doctor’s appointment, your kids teacher parents meeting, the bills you need to pay, whatever will crowd out any energy you need for finding/generating ideas. You so far have narrowed it down to a book about science fiction that will go on to be a trilogy. Now, do you want to write about a space ship captain?

WW: No, I want to write about fairies.

PV; Do you like stories about fairies?

WW; No, but my friends like them and they’re hot sellers.

PV; If you don’t thrive reading them your writing will become a drudgery and the book will drag on and on or never get finished.

WW: Well I like Steampunk.

PV; Great, what type of heroine do you identify with.

WW: Huh?

PV; Do you see yourself as an inventor, a mad scientist, a world conquering genius, or her faithful side kick Igorita?

WW: Harry Potter with a wrench.

PV; Bad choice. Don’t pick an all powerful super being with no flaws to be your heroine. Rey in the star wars movie could do anything with no instructions, no help and she had no flaws. The fans were not impressed with the Disney light saber wielding princess. And no orphans. It’s been done to death.

WW; Then what?

PV; Do the opposite. Make the heroine the 10^th daughter of a candle maker. She can burn it at both ends.

WW; You got a dirty mind.

PV; And you have been wandering around the desert for a week without a bath.

WW; Call it a tie, so where do I find this idea about the tenth daughter of a candle maker?

PV; Hold on. You got to have this heroine doing something. Is she on an airship?

WW; I’m afraid of heights.

PV; Is she on a train.

WW; No, one ran over my dog.

PV; How about an 1885 steam powered motor bike?

WW; No, my ex loved his bike more than me.

PV; How about something way out, like she’s on a steam powered wagon that has sails. A real prairie schooner.

WW; Wind surfing in Nebraska. I like it.

PV; OK, now we need a problem. Got to have a big problem. What if your heroine invented or her father invented the wind surfing wagon and she is trying to run a cargo delivery service with it. She has enemies, trains. The captains of the railroad are trying to put her out of business. Throw in the standard good looking bad guy henchman.

WW; Hold on there, that’s a stereotype.

PV; OK, make it a henchwoman.

WW; Get your mind out of the gutter. Now give me that map, I got a book due. Hey this is an outline.

PV; The last line says to get on Wikipedia and find out everything you can about land wind sailing. Then look up Annie Oakley.

WW; But.

PV; Do it or I’m writing a story using that idea.

Stay strong, write on.

Professor Hyram Voltage

My critique partner pointed out a plot hole that my Beta Reader found and I haven’t fixed yet. That’s not a good way to write a Steampunk book.

She also found another plot hole I missed.

It is not easy to fix plot holes. It takes work and time. I did not come up with the ideas needed to fix these holes in an hour or a day. It took a couple of weeks.

I did not sit around for weeks waiting for ideas to come to me, nor did I work writing and rewriting everything I could trying to fix the plot holes. I had plenty of other edits I needed to do to the book, plus I was working on the next book.

What I did do was; step one. Define what type or style of idea I needed.  The heroine of the story needs to find or be given some information that she doesn’t realizes what it means till the end of the book but is of vital importance. The villain, the greatest assassin on the Continent, is trying to blow up Castle Windsor. But she is doing it not to kill Queen Victoria, but to kill emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II (OK I know that Kaiser and emperor mean about the same thing but how else am I suppose to say it when I am trying to emphasize that an emperor out ranks a queen). This would upset Queen Victoria greatly, she doesn’t play second violin to anyone, even an emperor. Besides most people who tried to kill her used a hand gun. Anna, my villain, the Lithuanian widow maker, is going to use tons of gun powder not just one barrel of it like Guy Fox.

Step two, know the limits of the idea. My heroine has her limitations. She is a spy in training. There is no school for spies. Spies are the scum of society. She doesn’t have year of experience like James Bond, and is not a genius like Sherlock Homes. I have too many characters in the book to have a new one pop up and tell her the Kaiser is coming.

Step three, make a list of ideas, mash up ideas, kick around ideas. Follow the thread of an idea and see how the fallout of something happening would impact the heroine.What would happen if the Kaiser was coming for a visit? The Kaiser was the grandson of Queen Victoria. He did visit England often even thought he hated the English. What would be the normal things a big shot would do?

He would send scouts to make sure things were acceptable for his arrival. He would send a cook. The rick can afford to have a home cooked meal on the road. Back in the late 1890s people would visit for months at a time. The problem is why and how would the heroine meet the foreign cook. Would the foreign cook even speak English, he’s Prussian? Introducing the cook adds another character to an already crowded story.

Step four, what would make the idea plausible? Using real people and facts, helps a lot. I went and looked up who cooked for the Kaiser. Did the Kaiser have food taster? Found information on what Prussian’s eat at the time of my story, but nothing on the cook for the Kaiser.

I went over the part of the story where the heroine breaks into Castle Windsor, gets caught and escapes looking for a place where she could meet the cook. There’s not any room for her to meet the cook, she’s trying to escape not visit. She doesn’t stay long enough for dinner. Well she does but she is locked up and not fed during her stay. I have a bad crutch of having the characters eat a meal together and exchange information at the meal. A bad case of telling.

The heroine escapes in the back of a milk truck with the help of a couple of prostitutes. What are prostitutes doing in Castle Windsor? You’re going to have to buy the book to find out. The driver of the milk truck tosses an empty milk can into the back of the truck. He sees them in the back and locks them in the truck and drives off with them for his own nefarious purposes.

How can I change this to show (show is the key) the heroine getting information that the Kaiser is coming? If she couldn’t meet the cook, then what if she saw some of the food that was being sent for the Kaiser’s visit. What if instead of a empty 5 gallon milk can the driver tossed in two boxes of food marked for the Kaiser? What if the cook was selling the food as a side hustle, he always made sure he had too much food just in case the Kaiser decided to stay longer than planned so he would have food to spare and sell? Everyone had a side hustle back then. We call it embezzling, they called it saving for retirement.

How would the heroine know the food was for the Kaiser? Well big shots like to stamp their name on everything so the boxes would have the Kaiser’s stamp on them to warn people not to mess with the boxes.

That fills in the plot hole, now for some embellishment. What if the crazy lady prostitute was the daughter of a minister for the Bismark of Prussia (she doesn’t like the Kaiser, he caused her father to live in semi-permanent exiled)? I needed someone who could read the Prussian wording on the boxes. This also fills in some back story of the prostitutes. Two birds with one stone, or box of food.

So I have filled that plot hole. Steam rolled it flat and painted a stripe down the middle of it. Now on to the next plot hole.

Notice there are a lot of “what ifs” above. There are many more what ifs that I tried and threw them out when they didn’t work.

This is work, but it does work.

Stay strong, write on, and try a few “what ifs,” but know what you’re looking for.

Professor Hyram Voltage

Does your character need a character arc?

Think about it. Did Sherlock Holmes change after each investigation? No, he was and always will be Sherlock Holmes.

Did Bilbo Baggins change at the end of the Hobbit? No, when he got home he wanted to be a hobbit. He did not want to go adventuring again. He did not want to leave his hobbit hole.

If you’re writing a trilogy do you have to have the character go through a major character arc by the end of each volume. No, if you did a person reading volume two and going back and reading volume one may not like volume one because the character she loved in volume two is not the character with the same name in volume one.

How many life altering can a person go through and not go crazy? Think about Sue Garfton and the 26 volumes she wrote.

Think about yourself. When you learned to count, did you become a different person? Counting is one of the greatest inventions of the human race. How about when you learned to multiply. How many animals can multiply? Think about it. You are having a dozen friends over so you go and get two six-packs or four six-packs if your smart. But, did you change when you learned one of the greatest things that separates mankind from animals?

I don’t think you became a threat to the world (future dictator or demigod) when you conquered long division. Sure you learned something important, but it had little impact on your personality. Some people promptly forgot all they every knew about multiplication and division as soon as they could and sank back to being an animal.

No one remembers when multiplication or division was discovered. Think how that changed the world. No one remembers when we went from Roman numerals to Arabic numerals. But those things changed the world far more than Julius Caesar. Just try and do the calculus in Roman numerals.

If a person loses a loved one. She could change or maybe not. She might be sadder or she might turn around and find a new husband. Is she really different. Does she join a new church because she lost someone? Or would they struggle on and over come? Would your major character implode if they had a major lost in their life. I’ve seen all of this happen, but would I be interested in reading about a wimp that gets knocked down by things I’ve been through? Would you?

So plan your next book, even if it is a stand alone, to be a serial. It’s good business practice. You like the character, and your readers like the character, you have a built-in audience to fall back on. Are you going to change the character so much that if the reader reads the second then goes back and reads the first book she won’t  recognized or like (as in you lost a reader of your future books) the character?

Set your next series as 30 volume story. Make it James Bond in the Steampunk universe. “The names Blonde.” She ratchets the hammer back on the dainty, deadly gun. “Mary Blonde.”

Stay strong, write on, and think about how you have changed after major life altering events.

Professor Hyram Voltage

It happened again. A friend had a thumb drive die. Of course it contained the only copy of a file that he needed.

Thumb drives are good, useful, even necessary, but they will fail just like hard drives.

Always back up your files on two or more thumb drives. And keep the drives away from the computer and each other. Back ups won’t do you any good if the thief that steals your computer or the fire that destroys your computer also get your thumb drives and your back up flash/hard drives.

In the race to escape a disaster such as the recent Thomas fire you may not have the time to take your computer or be able to get to your house to save your computer or backup drives. Disasters happen fast.

If you have stuff stored on the cloud don’t get cocky. Cloud services have closed down and all the data on them was lost. A good hacker may one day find a way to hack AWS, evernote or one (or all) of the big cloud services.

Don’t store your only copy of your book, article, photos, etc. on one cloud service, on one hard drive, on one thumb drive. It’s your book, your life’s work, protect it, make several copies on several different medias, and store the media, the hard drive, thumb drive, even floppy, in several different places.

Big thumb drives are cheap. Keep one on you person. Keep another some place other than your house. Jerry Pournelle used to store back ups of his writing in a safe deposit box. A garden shed would do or even burying it in a flower pot by the back door if you have no place else.

Whatever you do; backup and then backup some more.

Bad things happen to data. Be prepared.

Stay strong, write on, and back it up.
Professor Hyram Voltage.