Creative Project Hypersleep: My Testimony

So, if you listened to yesterday's episode of the podcast, titled The Weekly Waffle: I Wish He'd Kept it to Himself, or you saw my notice earlier this past week on Twitter, you'll know about this thing called Creative Project Hypersleep, of which I volunteered to be a part.

Now, also if you've listened the podcast, you'll know that I'm not a very good extemporaneous speaker. When I try it, the words often come out muddled, tongue-tied, boarding on the incoherent. I've known this since I was a kid.

However, as a coping mechanism, I discovered years ago that if I worked out a vague outline of what I wanted to say, then when it came time to talk, I'd sound more fluid and articulate than I actually am. Thus, in preparation of recording my segment (If it gets used, of course—Chris Vandyke, who's running this operation, has the final say), I did just that. 

Of course, the written word and the spoken word are two different languages (to paraphrase Isaac Asimov), so it's not exactly the same as what I recorded, but this is—with a few changes—what I ended up saying on my installment. Enjoy.

Hello funny people. My name is Ian Martinez Cassmeyer. I'm a writer, blogger and podcaster, and I'm glad to be a part of Creative Project Hypersleep here on Sounds from the Year Between.

The Abandoned Work in Progress I've decided to discuss is in fact the very first novel I ever attempted to write. It's is a little misleading to call it that because the project in question was in fact the first volume in a 6 book epic fantasy series, that I hope to one day return to, revise, and complete. And that's a project titled The Matter of Sierde.

I started writing this book at the age of 14, without any clue as to what I was doing or any clue as to where the story was going. I initially began it as one story, for one book. However, as I kept going, the ending receded into the distance. At first I thought it could be 4 books. For a second, I thought maybe it was 5. Finally, I settled on 6. At 18, I finished the first draft.

(To be fair to my younger self, I was attending high school through that time, and I was a student musician with a lot of extracurricular commitments, so I didn't have a lot of free time in those days. That I got it done at all was a marvel.)

But, I finished it, and it was crap.

Despite that though, finishing it also made me realize that I really wanted to be a writer. However, I also recognized that I needed to get better, to learn how to write. And this brings me to the first of two reasons why I set Sierde aside.

Around this time, I'd come under the influence of one of the most important writers in my life, Ray Bradbury. In a 2001 lecture he gave, he said that one of the best things a young writer could do is "write a hell of a lot of short stories." In theory, it's a good idea, especially if you're learning your craft.

The short story and the novel are drastically different forms. Roger Zelazny said one way to think of a short story is as the climax of a novel you'll never write. There are, however, skills you can learn in one that apply to the other. How to structure a scene. How to transition from one scene to another. How to plot. How to dole out description and exposition so it doesn't slow a story's pace. How to begin a story with a bang. How to end a story satisfyingly. Economy if language. Etcetera.

That's in large part why I haven't returned to THE MATTER, but there's another reason.

Sometime during my college days, I started watching Brandon Sanderson's BYU Lectures on How to Write Sci-Fi and Fantasy. In one lecture, which was on the subject of breaking in, he mentioned that what agents and editors in Traditional publishing want from first-time novelists are "standalone books with sequel potential." The reason why is because a standalone work shows them that you, a new unknown writer, can FINISH a story. Whereas, if you try breaking in with the first book of a series or trilogy, you haven't proven that to them.

(Of course, there are exceptions. Both Patrick Rothfuss and R.F. Kuang broke in with the book in a trilogy, so it's possible. I, however, didn't have the confidence in my craft to attempt to do so.)

As a result, when I did finally feel confident enough in my craft to try another novel, which I'm at the moment working to complete, I designed it with that in mind.

That said I do hope to one day bring The Matter of Sierde out of hypersleep and share it with the world. Stephen King, who always advises young writers not to keep idea notebooks, believes the good ones stay in your mind and ferment until they grow into a fine wine that will intoxicate readers. I haven't worked on this project since I was 18. I'm 28 now, and it's still fermenting on the rack. So someday, the world may get a chance to sample it.