Author: Bob

I’m not sure about my novel writing skill; still collection rejections from agents. However, my complex data and abstract modeling talents have always served me well. Since my teen years, I’ve been slowly building a fictional world along with all its peoples and histories. That leads to the issue of keeping track.

At first, I just wrote general notes in my notebooks. Occasionally, I wrote a short story, or part of one, to illustrate an event or notable personage. This was good for a start, but it is easy to get overwhelmed. My boxes and shelves are stacked with old notebooks, some from as far back as the 1980s.

Fortunately, I like to read history. The history folks are fairly good at organizing events and people. Tools such as timelines really help. Concurrent and convergent timelines start to get complex, but clearly illustrate how events happen at different place but the same time, sometimes coming together. Short biographies help too.

If you read more heavily into Tolkien’s Hobbit books, and I assume you do, you see occasional references to books of information that only exist inside his fictional world. These tomes are written inside the story by the denizens there. This is a good example of something that I started doing.

While writing some historical notes about my world, it was sometimes easier to do it from the perspective of a person from that world. Many of the characters are of a group called Lovelos (IPA ,loʊ.vɛl’.oʊ). As I wrote their historical notes, I would make reference to their other interesting volumes. At first, this was just to amuse myself, such as referencing Royal Lovelo Intelligence Manual on Self Defense, Volume 7 Assassination. Making these asides also kept me from branching off into another set of notes at the time. Eventually, it became a way to keep the world notes themselves.

Since the Lovelos figure so prominently in my stories, they were good candidates for historians. As a result, I now slowly transfer the old notes, and write all the new ones from the histories of the Royal Lovelo Intelligence Service. By keeping the index in a spreadsheet, I can organize them. I assume that I will have the whole thing organized and complete-ish shortly after my three-hundredth birthday.

There are times when I need to note something that the Lovelos would not know. That is easy to handle for two reasons. First, most of the other peoples have at least some literate persons capable of chronicling the happenings of the day. Second, the Royal Lovelo Intelligence Service is not above copying or stealing the documents of other peoples. Their preferred way to handle this is to steal the document, copy it, and return it without the other people noticing.

Between timelines, short stories, and an official in-story chronicling agency, I can organize my notes and make them easier to review as I write more. If you have a world of your own, it may be worthwhile to do this yourself. Of course, if you are building your own world, it will take up quite a bit of time you should be spending in the real one.

After the recent Horror Writing Intensive, I decided that I should definitely try to find a market for the resultant short story. I even put it on my To Do List so I would feel guilty if I didn’t get around to it. Four hours later, nothing else had been done, but I did make progress in my attempt to get published.

While looking for places to submit my tale, I also found literary agents who accepted horror. Many of them claimed interest in other things too, things like my novel Cordell’s Rebellion. This meant that I stopped each time to see if the agent was a potential fit and what they wanted from a submission. Since it is traditional to be rejected by the first million agents you solicit, I submitted Cordell to a handful of them.

Eventually, though, I knew I would run out of day and still need to get to other things on my list. I made note of an assortment of further agencies to review later, but did not submit. They will get their turn at rejecting my novel later. Instead, the focus went back to finding a place for a horror story.

When I was younger, horror magazines were everywhere. You could find them in magazine stands at grocery stores. Now the survivors have mostly gone digital. Some of the giants are still in print, but I’m not sure if my fish is big enough for those ponds yet. I stalked the smaller venues instead. I only submitted to one; but I imagine the turn around time on a rejection will be faster here than in the case of an agent. I can do more submissions later.

That was my productive day, at least in terms of attempting to get my writing out to the world. Quite honestly, I have been writing on the other days; mostly touching up old stories or roughing out ideas for new ones. That’s probably productive too, but without it getting to the world, my writing will just become an oddity for some future archeologist to find. That’s all the more reason to write weird stuff.

I recently participated in an online horror writing class from the Writer’s Digest people called Horror Writing Intensive: Analyzing the Work of Genre Master Stephen King. It was taught by Philip Athans and I found it to be very informative and enjoyable. Here’s why.

I usually avoid online courses because I’ve had bad experiences and heard of the experiences of other people. Even in my own teaching experience, the online way of doing things has some limitations. In this case, the price was low and I had read Writing Monsters by Mr. Athans and liked that. This was enough for me to take a chance.

The first part of the course covered things that we find scary, and why, while the second part covered the more technical details of writing. For both parts, examples from Stephen King illustrated the key points. The works of other authors popped up as well. I thought the examples were excellent, and I enjoyed re-reading Mr. King’s stories.

The course included a forum where everyone taking the course could interact. The people taking the course at the same time were interesting and had some wonderful ideas about horror and writing. It was nice to have the interaction while the course lasted.

The culmination of the course was to write a short story, under two thousand words, and submit it to Mr. Athans for critique. Applying all the ideas learned in the course, I reworked an idea I had about a month ago to create my story. It came in at 1711 words and I thought it was pretty good. The title is Beer and Cemeteries.

The feedback on the story was very positive, in general. There was a part where I inserted a clever idea that should probably have its own story, but that disrupted the flow of the current tale. As soon as I read the feedback, I knew exactly what he was saying. Since then, the story has been revised to extract the extraneous. Now I just have to find a market for it.

Overall, this was a pleasant experience. I know my friends always tell me I should be writing horror, but their my friends and writer never really believes them. To have a positive response from someone in industry was a nice confirmation and confidence boost. If they offer the course again, I would highly recommend it.

Over the years, I’ve been a member of a few writers’ groups. Most were short lived and had varying degrees of productivity. One, however, lasted more than a decade and produced quite a bit of work. Based on these experiences, here are suggestions for starting and running your own group.

Item One: Try to get a sponsor where you can meet

The long-lived group was sponsored by our local Barnes and Noble Bookseller. This provided us a good place to meet. They also promoted the group, which helped bring book-oriented people into the store on a regular basis. At first, they provided a small budget for copying, but we quickly exceeded that and had to take care of copying on our own.

One of the trade-offs for sponsorship was that we were expected to try to be an audience for other events at the store. When authors came in, we would sit and listen, which most of us wanted to do any way. The store’s cafe used to have an Open Mic Night, and we attended that as both audience and participants. One of their employees ran the group and we had a place in the store where we could drop off and pick up the groups writings to be critiqued.

The recommendation is that you try to find a business that will let you meet and is willing to be a partner to some degree. Coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and bookstores are great for this, especially if the business has some hours that are usually slow and they could use your group’s business at the time. It is important that you support their business while they are supporting your writing!

In general, as long as your group provides some benefit to the business, even if it is just buying coffee, you will probably be welcome. Just don’t let the group cause more trouble than it is worth.

Item Two: We’re here to help

One thing that usually tears apart a writers’ group is hostility. If a couple of members regularly ridicule the others or their writing, the meetings are not welcoming or useful. The non-hostile members will go away and not come back. You have to make sure that the rules for the group are set to avoid this. Regular hostility may cause an unpleasant environment in the eyes of your host establishment if you have one.

However, one of the functions of a writers’ group is to provide constructive criticism. This is different from just insulting the writing or the author. Here are two examples: “I don’t understand why the character left the room,” versus “this sucks.” Obviously the first tells the author that this reader didn’t understand some part of the story. The author can reevaluate whether this should be explained better. The second example doesn’t tell anything useful; you have to explain what sucked.

If a person insists on attacking everything without being helpful, you can ask them to leave. At that point, you do not include that person’s writing on the list of things to critique and you do not acknowledge them when they attempt to interact. This is usually adequate. We never had to get police involved to be rid of somebody (as far as I remember).

Item Three: The author speaks

During the critique of an item, the author should shut up and listen. The group members will discuss the piece and only refer to the author as “the author”. In doing so, the focus is purely on the writing and not on the author as a person. This helps avoid some hurt feelings, and it makes the group members think about what they want to say. Imagine discussing the writings of someone who is not there, such as some famous writer.

The other reason for doing this is that it keeps the author from trying to explain parts of the writing that the readers did not get. When the final written piece goes out, it must stand on its own without any further explanation from the author. If the readers in the group don’t understand something, then readers in the wild won’t either. The author should listen to these mistaken interpretations and use them to evaluate how to rewrite the piece to convey the correct message.

When the critique is over, the author can ask the group members to clarify anything they said during the session, but still should avoid explaining anything. The clarification is there to help the author do the rewrite and nothing else.

As a general rule of etiquette, the author should thank everyone for their feedback and for taking the time to read the material.

It’s also helpful if the readers give written feedback to the author after the critique. This is particularly useful if the reader found grammatical or spelling errors. The reader can also mark notable items such as, “Here’s the part where I lost track of the character’s motivation,” or “This phrasing jarred me out of the scene.”

Item Four: The schedule

The group members should submit copies (paper or email) to the group ahead of the meeting so the members will have time to read and prepare feedback. In general, the critiques should take place in the order of submission. Members should be nice enough to only submit a reasonable quantity of material so as not to hog all the group’s time.

Since your group strives for politeness, the group can decide to supercede the ordering if someone needs feedback on a piece that has an immediate deadline. For example, if a person is writing an article for a local magazine and needs to have it submitted by the following weekend, the group may decide to critique it before the regularly scheduled pieces just to be helpful. It is assumed that members will not abuse this practice.

If a member is writing a novel or other very long piece, it works best if they submit no more than a chapter or two per meeting. This keeps them from overwhelming the group’s schedule. If some members can’t wait to read the next bit, the author may choose to provide that to them separately.

The leader of the group should announce the schedule for the current meeting and the next one at the start of the meeting. This makes it very clear to everyone what will be discussed and what they should be reading next. If a member knows they will not be able to make it to a meeting when their piece is to be critiqued, they should make that known as soon as possible so the group can adjust the reading schedule.

Item Five: Other things on the table

In addition to critiquing each other’s’ works, the group will probably want to talk about writing in general. A good time to do this is at the very start of the meeting. The leader can ask if anyone has any writing-related news to share. This can be very helpful and further the goals of the group. It is important not to let trivia take up the whole meeting, though.

The group may also need breaks if the meeting runs a while. Plan accordingly and try to fit the breaks in at an approximate time. Adjust the time to the space between critiques to avoid disrupting the conversations. Of course, the members are all grownups and can come and go as they need to during the meeting.

Item Six: Pleasantness and leadership

One of the things that will keep a group going is that it must be a pleasant environment for its members. Though this is not always possible to accomplish, it should be a goal.

Part of this comes from the leader. The leader is more of a facilitator and coordinator, not a dictator. The people in the group are there because the membership is beneficial to them. A leader that lacks leadership skills will be either overbearing or incapable of maintaining some order. Either extreme will see the group fall apart.

If you don’t have a member with natural leadership skill, consider doing some research on the subject. There are many books about leadership and a couple of members could help each other by building those skills. In fact, this is a good place to develop skills that will help in the rest of your life.

Example Meeting

Here’s a quick scenario of the opening of a meeting. It’s just a general example, so don’t get too hung up on the specifics.

Leader: Welcome everyone; it looks like we have a good number of people here tonight. That should make for good critiques. Before we get started, does anyone have any news, successes, or other things they would like to share?

Member A: For those who haven’t heard, FAMOUS AUTHOR has a new book coming out next month. It’s part of their series.

Various Members: Cool. I’ve been waiting for that one.

Member B: There’s a new magazine starting in town. It’ll focus on small businesses in the area. Those of you freelancers may want to see if they need any articles. Email me and I’ll send you the particulars.

Member C: This isn’t writing related, but my sister just had her first baby. It’s a healthy baby girl and both are doing just fine.

Member D: Do you have any pictures?

Member C: Of course. I’ll show them to you during break.

Leader: That’s really cool. Congratulations to your sister. Are there any more news items? No? Then here’s the schedule. Tonight we have a short story from Member A, followed by two short poems by Member G. We will finish with a short story from Member C. For next meeting, it’s Member B, Member D, and Member F.

Member D: I won’t be able to make it to the next meeting. Can you bump me till the one after?

Leader: Sure. So next week then it’s Member B, Member F, and Member G. Are there any questions or comments?

No comments.

Leader: Okay, then we start with the short story from Member A. Member A, you are under the “cone of silence” and cannot speak until we are done. Remember everyone, only refer to Member A as “the author” and do not address Member A directly.

Everyone: the critique moves along as though the author is not present and the readers evaluate the story. If a reader has difficulty explaining something they did not like, the others try to help draw it out through the conversation. The discussion continues until it reaches a natural end. The leader can encourage something to wrap up if it seems like something is being argued for too long.

Leader: Does anyone have any last comments to make? Going once. Going twice. That’s it. Member A, the cone has been lifted and you can ask any questions.

Member A: Thanks, everybody, for your comments. I got a lot of good feedback that I can use for the rewrite. Member B, when you said you lost track of the characters, was that on page two or page five?

Member B: I think it was page five. Since I was the only one who had that problem, it may just have been me.

Member A: I’ll still take a look at it. Thanks!

Leader: Any other comments on Member A’s short story?

The group shakes their heads no.

Leader: Okay, it’s not quite break time, so we’ll plunge ahead. Member G, you’re up next. We’ll start with your poem FIRST POEM. Does everybody have that?

The group shuffles around their papers to the correct poem.

Leader: Member G, you are being critiqued.

The group critiques the poem.

The rest of the meeting continues in this fashion. At the end of the meeting, the Leader wraps up.

Leader: That takes care of tonight’s meeting. Remember for next time, read the works from Member B, Member F, and Member G. Also, those wanting info on the new small business magazine, email Member B. Congratulations to Member C on her new niece. Don’t forget to tidy up your area so we don’t leave a mess for the employees here.

Other Things

When my old group was going strong, we tended to go out to eat after the meeting. Sure, we snacked and had beverages from the B&N Cafe while meeting, but we went to a late night restaurant afterward. Even after the late supper, many of us stood in the parking lot until the wee hours still talking about writing and everything else. Writers are just like that.

We also had occasional sub-groups. In some cases, a few members found that they wrote in a very specific genre or subject matter that the general group didn’t understand, such as something technical related to their work. The general group may be able to help with paragraph structure or spelling, but would otherwise be lost. By having these temporary sub-groups, we let the specialists help the best they could while not taking up the main group’s time with things with which they offered little help.

The main thing, though is the encouragement of writing and the growth of the writers. The main reason my old group finally fell apart is that the core group, the ones who really took it seriously, just got too busy to be involved. We had all grown in our separate paths and went our different ways. All of us are still friends and in contact with each other, but the group is just a happy memory.

My name is Bob Trapp. I am a writer, among other things, from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. The purpose of this web site is to discuss my writing and to encourage writing overall. I have no idea if any of this will prove useful to others, but I hope someone can find some inspiration or advice here.

… But More About Me

As mentioned, I am a writer. I also teach computer programming and database development full time. My life has seen many jobs. I started in residential construction and remodeling. There was a little fortune telling during leaner days. I’ve repaired all sorts of machinery, from photocopiers to life support equipment. For many years, I made eye glasses before moving into industrial optics. It was a struggle, but I was moving gradually up the ladder of respectability. At one point, I was even a candidate for the Iowa State House (“You gotta pick the right guy to do the job; go out now and vote for LibertyBob, liberty bobbity boo!”)

The Lurker

Trouble coping with hot weather started in my teens. It was difficult for me to function during summer. I dropped a high school welding class because it was too warm.

At the same time, my stamina diminished. Where I had been able to run or ride bicycles with my friends, those abilities faded. That meant that my weight increased as well. People started to think of me as just another heavy kid who needed to get out more.

Later in high school, my family moved to the south. It is warmer there. Even in winter, they run their heaters a little higher than I like. In a few events, I collapsed, barely conscious.

The emergency room doctors found nothing. They performed EEG tests and a CAT scan, but the heart beat and there were no brain injuries. They decided it must be psychological. That’s where things stayed for quite a while.

In my early twenties, I found myself in the emergency room on many occasions, always during warm weather or when I over exerted. First responders demanded, “what did you take?” and always rolled their eyes when I was finally able to mutter that I hadn’t taken anything. They sat me in the air conditioned hospital until physicians could look me over, by which time I would have mostly recovered. Those doctors then sent me for psychiatric evaluation.

Almost Dead

In my early thirties, things had gotten really bad. The new doctors treated me for a respiratory infection and said I had a little fluid in my lungs. My weight sat at about 270 pounds (122 kg). I could barely breath or get up from a chair. It was necessary to sit in chairs instead of lie in bed to stop the constant coughing.

A friend, who was a former nurse, went over all my symptoms on the phone. She finally asked, “Can you get to the emergency room or do I need to take you?”

By this time in my life, I had my fill of dealing with emergency rooms, so I told her, “You seem to have an idea what you’re talking about. Why don’t you take me.”

She drove me to the E. R. and bullied them into running the tests she thought were necessary. High on that list of tests was an echocardiogram. This is a sonogram check of the heart, using sound waves to see what the heart is doing in real time. It was the one that paid off.

The left ventricle of my heart was damaged and enlarged. At this point, they could not be sure what caused the damage, but in discussion we decided that it was probably a severe flu I had at the age of eleven. The ejection fraction (the percent of blood pumped out of the ventricle) was in the 15-20% range. (NOTE: the normal range for healthy humans is 50 – 70, with 60-65 being common. Athletes such as soccer players and marathon runners are the ones that get near 70.)

Treatment

In the first few weeks, I dropped thirty pounds just by losing stored liquids. My cardiologist put me on pills, dietary and liquid restrictions, and structured but reduced physical activity. I could only work a few hours a day, and I was likely to fall asleep during those hours. Fortunately, I was good at what I did and was still productive compared with my predecessors.

There was also talk about the future. The prognosis was not good. The cardiologist discussed the likelihood of heart transplant within a couple of years. I didn’t know at the time, but the life expectancy was pretty low for someone in my condition. They didn’t understand my will power and work ethic.

I followed the doctor’s orders about the diet. I took my pills as instructed. I did my exercise and often pushed myself to do just a little bit more. Now that I knew what caused those years of trouble, I was determined to beat it.

One Year Later

On the annual recheck, they did another echocardiogram. It took a week for the results to come in. My cardiologist was ecstatic. He described running around the clinic to find his primary nurse to show her. My ejection fraction had climbed to about 35 percent.

It was at this time that I realized just how bad off I had been. They really had no hope for a recovery; they were just trying to delay my death by a small amount. The idea that I would start getting better had not entered their minds.

To School

Since the original diagnosis, my job had changed to the point where they could no longer accommodate my time and lifting restrictions. Being laid off meant filing lots of paperwork. The Social Security Administration considered me disabled. The doctors were surprised that I was working at all.

Not one for sitting around, I formed a plan. Being stuck in a chair meant I could probably sit at a computer. Even if I couldn’t get a full-time job, I could at least do something. With the help of Iowa’s Vocational Rehabilitation program, I found out what I could do to learn more about computing.

In middle school, a group of us had been encouraged to learn programming with the little computers available. Throughout all of my jobs, people always came to me with computer tasks or questions. Throughout all of that, I had never made a really serious study of the material, but it was time. I enrolled in the local college.

Within four years, I was graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. My ejection fraction had also increased to about 45 per cent. It was time to go back to work.

Eventually, I earned a Master of Science in Computer Science as well, and have the debt to prove it. It was this last degree that got me my teaching gig.

State of the Heart

Today, my heart is at the low end of the normal range. Summers still limit me and I won’t be running any marathons in the near future. These improvements happen as a combination of competent medical care, following doctor’s orders (but not their prognosis), and obnoxious determination.

Even as the heart improved in the fifteen years since the original diagnosis, it has had a serious impact on my life. The biggest impact probably comes from being told that I had an unidentified mental illness for so many years, even though it was just heart damage.

Many of my decisions and behaviors in my teens and twenties were based on the belief that there was something unreliable about my mind. I avoided many long-term romantic relationships because, if I couldn’t rely on me, how could I ask someone else to do so? I didn’t pursue many business endeavors for the same reason. Though I was a hard worker, I avoided interacting with the public if I could.

Check the Ankles

Today, things are much improved and I’m fully involved with attempting to accomplish more than just recovering from heart damage. I can do this because one former nurse took the time to ask the right questions. One of the big questions was: do you have swelling in your ankles?

The enlarged left ventricle is the source of the problem, but the trouble it causes is a form of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). In this condition, the heart cannot move the blood around the body properly. There are many possible causes for CHF, but the results are about the same.

It is difficult to see CHF in the emergency room for a couple of reasons. First, emergency rooms mostly have three states for heart issues: it’s not beating, it is sort of beating but you are having a heart attack, or it is beating. If it is just beating fast and you have blood pressure, then they look for non-heart issues. Their job is to deal with the immediate issue and then move you on for long-term treatment by someone else.

Unfortunately, the symptoms of CHF are similar to the symptoms of many psychiatric issues, particularly anxiety attacks. Because some part of you is not getting blood, that part is not getting oxygen. You brain signals the body to breath heavy and to increase the pulse. If the heart is inefficient at what it does, making it go faster does no good.

With an enlarged heart, the pulse can be strong and the blood pressure fine, but the blood doesn’t really move very far with each beat. It’s like heavy traffic; the road is good and all the cars are there, but nobody gets anywhere. As a result, the body stores liquid instead of moving it out of the tissues where the blood flows. This just adds to the issue.

This is what tipped off my friend. When she asked about my ankles, she wanted to know if my body was storing excess fluid. This is one of the big differences between CHF and an anxiety attack. This is what told her that the echocardiogram was the tool to use. Thank’s to her knowing that, I’m, alive today.

Now, whenever I encounter new medical people, I relate that part of my story to them in the hopes that they will learn to look for the little signs that can push the diagnosis a different direction. Maybe it will save someone else’s life someday.

As for the Writing…

I’ve been a storyteller since childhood. When the cousins gathered around, I was the one to keep them entertained with tales invented on the spot. The cousins liked monster stories, mostly inspired by old movies.

In my teens, my friends liked to play role playing games. It got to the point where I never got to be a player, but had to manage the games because they liked the worlds I built, even if they didn’t always like my bad jokes. Into my late twenties, people invited me to their games just to breathe new life into stale scenarios.

A high school friend and I started writing a story long ago. Since we lived in different states, we exchanged through mail. Eventually, it died out. I still enjoyed the activity. It’s just something I like.

In computing, my strongest skills are modeling data and processes. These are the same skills used when building a world or story in fiction. I’ve actually used that as an assignment, making the students design a database to store parts of a story or historical event (same structure).

Unfortunately, I let the concept of “real work” get in the way of writing throughout my life. I always wondered if I could afford to direct my resources to the creativity rather than the sure thing that is a solid job. Now that I’m older, I can do both, and I have been.

I still need to put more into the writing side of my life. I need to associate with more other writers. I need to submit more materials for publication. I need to read more literature that has nothing to do with my day job. Getting at least one novel published is on my bucket list, and I have every intention of doing so.

In Conclusion…

That’s about all there is to know about me and this site. As I said, I don’t know if it will be useful to anyone. If nothing else, it may survive the next thousand years and be all that the historians and archeologists find of our civilization. If that’s the case, just remember this one thing about me: he was a good king.