The Topher Story

Today, I thought we’d do something a little different. Instead of a writing post, I am going to tell you the story of my mongrel crossbreed, Topher and why I tell people he’s a horrible animal and that he makes my life a living hell. This article started life as an email sent to the pound I got Topher from—though my friends liked it so much, I thought I would share it here:

Topher was one of nine pups, brought to YAPS from Yarrabah in early 2011. Their mother looked something like a brindle German Sheppard—though it was hard to tell, as she was half bald with mange. The pups were five weeks old when I first saw Topher, and she had already abandoned them. The nine of them lived in a pen, outside, in some plastic kennels because YAPS, like so many no kill shelters, is desperately underfunded and has too many dogs.

I chose Topher because he was the quietest and when I picked him up, he sighed and rested his head on my chest, listening to my heartbeat. I fell in love. That ended a week later, when I finally went to pick him up and I heard him scream for the first time.

Yarrabah is a remote aboriginal community. So saying Topher’s mother was ‘part German Sheppard’ is really a joke. There are feral dogs everywhere, most of them descendant from herding dogs or pig dogs. However there hasn’t been a purebred in Yarrabah.... ever. It’s probably 30 generations since there was a ‘breed’ in his lineage. However it’s likely his father had a decent amount of dingo in him, because the sound coming from that 6 week out puppy was nothing like a dog could make.

It wasn’t a whine. It wasn’t even a howl (though he can howl and dingo howls make dog howls sound like goddamn sneezes). It was an extended shriek. A hysterical, unending scream, like a car-crash and a fire alarm had a baby and the baby hated you.

Topher was the most disastrous, nightmarish puppy I have ever known. But what triggered all this screaming? A lack of physical contact. Yes, if I wasn’t physically touching him at all times, he would become an air-raid siren. However he would enthusiastically bite anyone who picked him up. I spent several months living on the floor to keep him quiet. We bled constantly, he bit anything that passed by his face.

Despite having raised three other dogs to be perfectly behaved, well adjusted animals in the past—including Pheonix, who had been badly abused and came to me extremely aggressive and depressed—nothing I did with Topher seemed to work. Determined not to be defeated by a creature that occasionally ate lint, I persevered.

He hated going outside and after several months of him lying prone, letting me physically drag him around the block like he was dead, I gave up on walkies. The neighbours were becoming suspicious.

He ate well, but remained as skinny as an anorexic greyhound but despite several vet visits where he metamorphasized into a hysterical octopus on crack, I was assured he was a healthy, if utterly psychotic, puppy. He was desexed on the earliest possible day the vet was willing to do the procedure in the hope it would calm him down. It didn’t.

He loved banana more than life itself and while he refused to eat bread, pasta or rice leftovers, no one could eat fruit without giving him some. He continued to be slightly thinner than a skeleton and I began to get paranoid someone would call the RSPCA. He also had mange from his mother—dermodectic, not sarcoptic—and a severe allergy to mosquito bites, so his fur was patchy and he looked badly abused. Eukanuba puppy food and every mange cure known to man did nothing to help.

Despite refusing to leave the house, Topher found he quite liked the treadmill and began running a few kilometres a day while I watched TV. He loved trips in the car too, until anyone attempted to leave it, or get him out of it, when he would become a hysterical screaming crack octopus again. It was just as well, as he looked awful.

Every week we brought home piles of new toys to keep him entertained and happy, until the house resembled a very messy day care centre. Whenever Topher destroyed a toy, the little toy pieces would become ‘new toys’ and he would become distraught at any attempts to throw them out.

We moved to Brisbane in October of 2011 and after the mange finally cleared up, Topher began limping. After another hysterical octopus vet visit where the attending vet called him ‘deranged and psychotic’, we found out that both his knees dislocate and the vet suggested surgery. $7000 surgery.

I was told, by many people, that a bullet only costs a dollar.

Why would I spend $7000 on an animal? A feral mongrel, no less. A new dog would be cheaper. Even a pedigree from a breeder would be cheaper. There were plenty of people willing to tell me they would never spend that much on a pet.

It never even crossed my mind. After numerous expensive vet visits where I pointlessly assured vets he was ‘not always this mental’ we found a medication that keeps him pain free and walking comfortably without invasive surgery. There may still be surgery later, but it’s been a long time since he limped at all now.

And, as I had always hoped, on his first birthday, he mellowed out completely. He still has oodles of toys, he’s still as thin as a greyhound and he still hates going outside, but he walks on a lead like a normal dog now. I work from home, so he’s always with me, but these days he’s equally happy to sleep in another room while I work—rather than glued to my leg, shrieking hysterically when I go to the bathroom.

I can’t even imagine how he would have survived in Yarrabah. I suspect it would be physically impossible for him to exist without a couch to sleep on and a kong toy to occasionally drop between my legs into the toilet.

I’d give up my house and live in my car before I gave up Topher. These days people say he’s beautiful and ask what breed he is. I say he’s a ‘some kind of horrible mongrel’ and they look horrified. Topher knows exactly what sort of dog he is. He’s my dog, and he’s never going to be any other kind.

Oh, and for the record? He still rests his head on my chest, listened to my heart, and sighs.

Always Back Up Twice.

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK:

- Always back up twice.

We’ve all heard the horror stories about novels being lost. The file gets corrupted, the hard drive fails, or a bitter sibling or ex-lover deletes the files out of spite. These things happen. Not only to they happen, but they happen with alarming regularity.

Computers can be lost in fires or floods, computers can be stolen, and computers can need a complete wipe after a viral attack.

With any of these unfortunate events, your stories can be lost. All the beautiful, fragile, heartfelt words that you breathed life into can be lost and swept away forever. Please don’t think I am exaggerating that I say at least 50%, if not more, of my writing friends have lost words due to an error or accident. Usually they don’t lose ALL their words; sometimes they don’t even lose an entire novel. However words are lost.

I always recommend having two backup systems, though which two you choose is up to you. Here are some more popular ways to protect and back up your creations:

- An external hard drive

PROS: Can be stored in a fire proof safe. Can hold large files.

CONS: Hard drives can get viruses and fail, just like computers. You might lose everything on them if you drop them.

- Burnt onto a CD

PROS: Old CDs can be disposed or stored. I carry my CD with me, so if I lose the house, I have my writing. CDs are cheap and easy to write on.

CONS: CDs can be lost, scratched or broken. Not the most environmentally friendly choice.

- Emailed to yourself

PROS: Nothing physical to be lost or broken. Most addresses can be accessed from anywhere. Most emails allow you to create and name folders, so your files can be labelled and stored.

CONS: If you’re hacked, files can be deleted or stolen. A server glitch could still wipe them out. Small file allowances mean you’ll have to send lots of emails. Unless well organised, finding what you want could be a nightmare.

- Drop box

PROS: Drop box will sync across all your computers and devices.

CONS: You have to pay if you want more than 2 gig of storage. You could be hacked, or a server glitch could delete all your files.

- Posted to yourself

PROS: Mostly done in the days before digital storage as a form of copyright protection. Can be stored in crates in the attic.

CONS: Wastes paper, takes up space and no protection from natural disasters.

- USB sticks

PROS: Can be carried with you everywhere. Files can be accessed at any computer.

CONS: USB sticks can die and are easy to lose.

- Hosted on a server

PROS: Can hold large files. Usually very secure.

CONS: May cost money. Servers can crash and be hacked.

The most important thing to remember is, whatever backup method you use, PICK TWO and back up OFTEN. At least once a month. Make the first of every month backup day—write it in your calendar and be sure not to fall behind. Do an extra backup whenever you finish a draft—particularly a first draft.

Perhaps, together, we can make sure no prose is ever lost again.

How to do 10k a Day

Big Goals:

Is it possible to get 10k in a single day? I did and I am a tragically slow writer. I know writers who have achieved much higher word counts in a single day. One of them was 12. One of them managed to finish her entire nanowrimo novel in just over twenty four hours. A small part of me hates them both (while also loving them and being incredibly proud I have such awesome friends).

The important thing is that it’s possible for anyone to do 10k in a day, but it does require some planning. This is how I do it.

When to Aim High:

While achieving an obscenely high word count is possible, it's not always the right thing to do. The quality will suffer--though perhaps not as much as you think--so time saved writing may then be wasted on editing. However proving that you CAN do it is one of the most empowering things an author can do, and I highly recommend it.

Don't let your fear of the quality hold you back. However don't try and rush a high word count because you have a major deadline in the near future either.

Before you begin:

Pick a day in advance. It's very difficult to wake up one morning and decide 'Today I'm going to write 10k'. You chances of failing are very high. You may need a week or more to plan, or maybe you can get everything together the day before. However for really high word counts you should plan to pace yourself and aim to do 1k an hour. If you want 10k, that's 10 hours of writing. If you're not ready start writing until 11am, you won't be finished until 9pm--and you'll be exhausted from getting everything ready in such a rush.

What to prepare:

Food. You will need three or four healthy meals, prepared and ready to go, in a nearby fridge. You will also probably need some healthy snacks, so get them ready in little Tupperware containers. Aim for foods with a low GI. You will need carbs and vegetables/salad and if you can get some omega three in there in the form of a cold tuna salad or nuts, do so.

Most of you will probably want plenty of coffee (I don't drink caffeine) and if you smoke, make sure you have enough that you won't need to go down the shop. Incidentals like toilet paper, milk, etc, all need to be ready too.

You will need your favourite, most comfortable clothes to be washed and laid out ready to put on. After six hours or so, you start to notice every little annoyance and tight/uncomfortable clothing will suddenly become a distraction worthy of giving up completely.

I highly recommend you completely outline the material you want to write over the 10k. Make sure you have plenty of bullet points--preferably about twice what you think you will need. I know many of you like to just 'write as you go'. However that rarely works for marathon sessions such as these. Much of your time will be spent trying to work out what happens next and your tired, addled brain will come up with some terrible ideas. Plan. You will appreciate it later.

First thing:

Shower. Dress in your comfortable clothes. Turn off your modem and unplug it from the wall. Do the same with your phone. Set up your computer and open your word files. Close the door so you are alone in the room.

Begin writing.

Those steps are very important and should be done in that order. Showering first wakes you up and doesn't give you the 'I stink, I should shower' excuse later on. Turning off your modem is even more important. You must deny yourself all internet access.

If you reach a stage in the manuscript that you realise you need to research, stick in some asterisks, highlight them in a neon colour and get back to that part later. No internet. No checking emails. Today it is just you and the words.

During the day:

You will probably be hungrier than usual. On a normal day I often don't eat until after 1pm, however during these writing marathons I am starving. Genuinely, overwhelmingly hungry. Which is why you have those prepared meals. Whip them out, choke them down, keep writing.

If you run out of food, it's getting late and you're still hungry, you have my permission to order pizza. However it will make you sluggish, so you really should try and have enough healthy food on standby.

You may not, however, go out and pick the pizza up yourself. No distractions. No excuses.

It’s brutal, but you have to stick with it until you reach your goals. If you start to get a headache, take painkillers right away, before it can get too bad to focus. You will make a great many excuses to stop. If you can't be alone at home, do all this at a library (I have) or even tolerant cafe.

Hotel rooms with shitty cable are awesome, because there is nothing else to do.

If I can do it, you can do it, because I am nothing special.

Faith, determination and positivity will get you over the line.

Happy writing!

Copyright 2012. Talitha Kalago.

RPGs and Writing

What are RPGs and why are they good for writing?

When people hear the term RPG or Role Playing Game, they tend to think of one of three things:

- Computer games, like Dragon Age and Mass Effects.

- Sexual games couples play in the bedroom.

- Old style geek board games, like Dungeons and Dragons.

All of these are incorrect in this context, but the last one is the most accurate.

I am referring to ‘play by post’ RPGs, in which the players take turns writing about the actions and reactions of their characters in a fictional setting. These games are usually played on a forum, via email, in a chat room or via an instant messaging program.

I can hear many of you shutting down and turning off now, but bear with me to the end of the tutorial. You’re about to learn something.

When I talk about play-by-post RPGs, I am referring to ‘long post’, rather than ‘short post’ or ‘chat room post’ games. I will expand on this later. However for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, a long post RPG will read exactly like a published novel, it will just have numerous point-of-view changes in every scene.

I’ll get into the nitty gritty of how a game is played soon, but first, why are RPGs good for writing?

Imagine you are training for a marathon. Food can either be very good for you, or very bad. If you’re eating Tim Tams, sausage rolls and chips all day, it’s going to hurt your chances of completing the marathon. If you’re eating lots of lean protein, leafy vegetables and wholegrain, you’re priming your body to be the best it can be.

In this analogy, RPGs are food and writing at novel is the marathon. RPGs can be either very good or very bad for your writing skills. If you want to use them to improve your writing, you need to have a strategic approach and you need to do it the right way.

I’ve been playing with my primary RPing partner for ten years now. Usually we play for two or three hours, everyday. And in that time, we each write between 3000 and 5000 words. Each. Every single day. Are you crunching the numbers in your head yet? That means our RPing sessions are equal to almost 35, 000 words of writing exercises every week.

Am I a talented writer? God no. I am a very well practised one.

My RPing partner too, has flourished into a brilliant writer. She will always be my favourite writer to read and she does characterisation better than any other person I know. However in our games I am always the DM, which means I plot the action and events of the game, and her characters essentially react. So while my plotting and world developing skills are fantastic, hers have been neglected.

She also doesn’t want to write books. So one of the most enjoyable writers of our generation will probably never see print. And her epic steam punk novel, Brass City, will remain ever unpublished, languishing in my backup hard drive until the day she agrees to give it to me to finish and accept a co-author credit. Not that I could do it justice.

So what separates the good from the bad?

Essentially, the good are separated from the bad by effort. Take away pizza is easy and bad for you. Homemade pizza takes time and effort, but it’s tastier, healthier and more satisfying. To make an RPG post good, you need to strive to include all the elements that make a scene in your novel good. It needs good pacing, intelligent dialogue, good characterisation, interesting description that brings the scene alive and a strong, developed narrative.

Why RP instead of just writing then? Because long post RP posts are between 200 and 500 words, then the other player reacts and sends you a post back, giving you something (hopefully) unexpected and interesting to reply to. You feed off one and other, you excite one and other, you’re working together to develop a fascinating world and plot.

Do you ever feel like your characters are alive and controlling the scene? Imagine if you didn’t write them at all. Imagine if you made something happen and they reacted all on their own, the words appearing on the screen. Good RPing is like that. It’s thrilling and exasperating. You have to think on your feet, react to unexpected plot twists and keep things moving. You get instantaneous reader feedback and validation and you get rewarded with your partner’s posts, which are hopefully just as thrilling and exciting for you, as yours are for them.

RPGs are all the best parts of reading AND writing, rolled into one insane package.

There are also a lot of shitty RPers in the world. People who write poorly and selfishly. People who are boring and self obsessed. People who want to RP because they hate their own life and want to live in a fantasy one where they are perfect. People who are downright crazy. People who only want to RP sex scenes to get themselves off.

To enjoy RPing and to get the benefits of it, you need a good partner. You need someone with the same goals as you, so I suggest looking for other writers. I did not find my partner on a Role Play forum or community. She gave me feedback on a short story I wrote, and after reading a few of her short stories, I realised she would be a fantastic RPer. The rest is history.

But how are RPGs actually played?

This is going to be easiest to explain with examples. Each player has a character, or several characters, whom they play. Usually one player will be the DM, directing the plot and non character events, such as cyclones and alien invasions. Players can only post for the actions of their own characters. Posting the actions of another players character is called ‘bunnying’ and strictly against the rules. Players should communicate with each other regarding injuries and deaths of their characters. If my character and my partner’s character get into a physical fight, we’ll normally talk about the outcome on skype beforehand.

There is no ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ in this kind of rpg. The goal is only to tell a good story together. So sensible players agree to end character conflicts in a way that best serves the plot. Just like when two characters in a novel fight.

Here are three posts, from a recent RPG, to show you how they actually look in practise. In this scene I am playing Princess MacKenzie, her father King Winter Riviera and Winter’s men. My partner is playing Prince Griffon and the court of the Trident. King Winter has arrived at the Trident with his armada and is taking Prince Griffon hostage with the intention of forcing him to marry the princess and gaining access to the trident’s trade routes. It’s an incredibly hostile situation, though everyone is pretending to be friends to avoid a massacre.

POST ONE – My Post.

The King of the Floating Trash Heap, AKA the Trident said a lot of nice things to MacKenzie’s father and they were all—even the berserkers and assassins—led through the floating-trash corridors to a banquet hall that smelt overpoweringly of every slithery wet thing that could be dredged up from the watersea.

MacKenzie was introduced to some fancy men in warm, sensible clothing and she let them touch her hands and tried to ignore the fact she was so cold her nipples were showing through the front of her dress. She was seated beside a bitter looking young man whom she presumed she was going to be forced to marry and served a lot of things that still had their heads, such as fish and crabs. She ate nothing and tried not to stare at it like it was actively trying to eat HER, because that would be rude.

The octopus on her plate looked sad. Dead, but sad. She was hypnotized.

Belatedly, she realised her father was looking at her and quickly tried to recall what had been said. Her father had been talking about the young man beside her. Something about him spearing sharks or people or sea monsters.

“Yes, a great many things,” she tried. Everyone seemed satisfied with her response.

“She wanted to come and meet him and I knew any young man valiant enough to inspire my daughter to travel so far from home must be a marvel.”

From anyone else her father’s words would have sounded gushy or cheap. Instead, they were almost threatening, as if the prince had set some trap to lure them here.

MacKenzie was used to it.

There was a berserker behind the prince. His face painted black and red, a ruff of black feathers around his hood. His eyes were blue. Their gaze met a moment and then the berserker went back to staring at the prince’s head.

She wondered if the berserker’s gaze was more off-putting than being expected to eat a sad octopus.

POST TWO – My Partner’s Post.

Griffon was wondering if anyone had ever been killed with the knife used to pry apart a mussel, though he was smiling and thanking the king for saying such kind things about him, his traitorous tongue pouring out compliments and pandering on automatic. He was aware of the man behind him and it killed his appetite, though he pushed his food around on his plate so he could look at it instead of King Riviera. He wondered if the man could see the hatred in his eyes, though he had no desire to look up and check.

He did glance at the princess next to him. She seemed aloof, cold and disinterested in anything they had to say. Still, he decided to try and pry some more comments out of her. "I'm surprised the princess is so interested in one young man from so far away, though I am honoured by her attention. How did you hear of me?"

POST THREE – My Post.

“Uhhhh,” MacKenzie stared at him, green eyes momentarily wide. She didn’t know his name, much less how she was supposed to have heard of him. She was pretty sure the Trident’s king was ‘Edwin’. Or something to that effect. Wasn’t the prince named after some kind of beast? Basilisk or Quinkin?

“Humorous hieroglyphs. Very popular in the port towns.”

Humorous hieroglyphs typically depicted royalty… though usually in acts of vice or depravity. Horse fucking or eating their own weight in cakes. She wondered what sort of humorous hieroglyphs there were of Prince Basilisk.

All the Floating Trash Heap people were staring at her. However she also knew she could say anything she liked to anyone but her father. She turned her plate so the sad octopus was looking at the Prince instead.

And on with the tutorial.

Hopefully you see how the game works. This particular game is currently around 350 pages long, probably close to 100, 000 words. That’s about average for a longish fantasy novel. The game could easily be as long as a trilogy before it’s done. The writing is quite raw—obviously editing is left to a minimum, as we’re firing off about twenty posts an hour.

In summary, RPGs can be an awesome tool to improve your writing. Some people will never ‘get it’ and some people will be lazy and actually make their writing worse by teaching themselves bad writing habits. However those who do it well, will not only find a great new pleasure in life, but will turn themselves into writing powerhouses.

Let me know how it goes for you.

Copyright. Talitha Kalago. 2012

Know Your Genre

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK:

- Know your genre.

Genres change.  Romance is still mostly about love and horror is still mostly about people being terrified or killed, however in recent years, some genres have boomed, evolved mutated and developed in vastly unexpected ways.

Many genres have grown up and become sophisticated—that’s not to say there weren’t great books in the past. However a lot of those great books might not pass the bar today—they’d be considered too cliché, to slow and too unimaginative.

I think this is due, in part, to computers and the internet allowing publishers and the rest of the world to really see what is selling and where the money is going. The best selling genre in the world is romance—and it has been for a very long time. However now everyone is being forced to admit this and can’t claim the intellectually ‘superior’ books are also financial superior, everyone is starting to take these previously dismissed genres seriously.

Too often, writers tell me they write ‘X’ genre, but don’t read it because they’re all the same. If it’s fantasy, they say they’re all about dragons, wizards, elves and princesses. Maybe they are, I mean, assuming we’ve been sucked back to the 80s and we can’t get home.

Another issue is people writing manuscripts that follow a plot that has been done to death. Vampires, for example. There is probably some way you could still write an original novel in this genre. However I don’t read them and I still know many of the plots unpublished writers are working on are exact copies of what is already out there.

Know your genre. Know what came out this year in your genre. Know what is coming out next year in your genre. And know what came out last year. Be familiar with the competition—and what is and isn’t expected of you.

I’m not saying not to write something if you’re passionate about it, but do know what it’s up against and what you need to do to rise it above the competition.