Sandra Tayler made an intriguing post yesterday on the importance of getting things wrong.

She's talking mostly about parenting. But the principle applies equally well to writing.

I tend to be a perfectionist when writing. I want every word to sing, every phrase to evoke vivid images. I want every scrap of dialogue to feel completely believable and every plot twist to turn reader expectations on their ears.

But when I'm writing a first draft, perfectionism is not my friend. It is not possible to get the dialog exactly right when you haven't written far enough to fully understand your characters. And perfecting sentences of description that are just going to get cut during plot revisions is inefficient, to say the least.

The best bit of drafting advice I ever got was this: Give yourself permission to write it badly.

Give yourself permission to scribble out junk, with the understanding that you can come back and fix it later. That bland snippet of description will not stay bland forever. The weak dialog can always be spruced up. Agonizing for days over the placement of a comma when you haven't yet positioned the scaffolding of your plot is wasted work. (At least, it is for me, and probably for 98% of other writers out there.)

So I'd like to wholeheartedly agree with the thesis of Sandra's post.

Sometimes, you've just got to get it wrong and move forward.

My story "All or Nothing" is now up at Daily Science Fiction. It's a fun little romance inspired by the number Zero, and is part of the Numbers Quartet series.

This happened mostly by accident. We've been looking for a sport to help our son improve his coordination and body tone. This turned out to be rather challenging because the social intricacies of most team sports are stressful for him.

Karate, it turns out, is exactly his thing. Watching his free trial lesson, I could see why. There is an exact position for each part of the body to be in at each moment. No one moves without the trainer's command. There is no roughhousing; only concentration and the knowledge that each motion you learn has a clear, practical application in combat.

In computer science terms, soccer is analog. Karate is digital.

Anyway, so one karate lesson, and my son was in love. If you've raised an autistic child, you know how rare a match like that is. At this point, there was practically no mountain I wouldn't climb and no price I wouldn't pay to get this little boy and his chosen sport together.

Enter Mr. Brown Belt. He came around at the end of the lesson and politely but firmly informed us that spectators aren't allowed at the beginning levels of karate; it makes the kids too nervous.

Well, dang it. That was a problem on two levels. First, because Alex hadn't been to enough classes to feel secure without me, and second, because I didn't want to risk a meltdown without a familiar adult somewhere nearby.

Solution: I am now a participant in the class.

Mother/child training, it turns out, is permitted. So here I am, learning a martial art. It's pretty fun, actually. A lot like dance, if you leave out that whole learning-to-kill-people-with-your-bare-hands thing.

Ebooks for Awards Readers
Movement is eligible for this year's Hugo and Nebula Awards and has been getting some very positive responses. I'm hoping it may have a (very slim, but definitely extant) chance of making this year's shortlist.

Accordingly, I'm offering a free copy of Movement to awards readers, in whatever format they prefer. If you know someone who's eligible to vote for the Hugo or Nebula Award, please encourage them to get in touch with me.

Ebook Giveaway
If you're not into the whole Awards Thing, but would really like a free copy of Movement, there's still hope. Inspired Kathy is running a giveaway at I am a Reader, Not a Writer. You can sign up in the blue box.

The First Numbers Quartet Story is Up
The Numbers Quartet is a collaboration between myself, Aliette de Bodard, Benjamin Rosenbaum, and Stephen Gaskell. Every Wednesday for the next 11 weeks, a new story inspired by a mathematical principle or physical constant will be posted at Daily Science Fiction.

This week's story is by Stephen Gaskell. It's about a guy who tries to steal the calculated value of pi in order to win an arms race. It's quite intriguing, and worth the read.

* * *

Ok, that's enough social media for me today. I'm supposed to be editing a book.

Our three-year-old requested a glass of warm chocolate milk before going to bed. While the milk was warming and she was waiting snugly in her bedroom, I decided to make a swift detour to the computer. If I hurried, I figured, I could finish a few last-minute tasks and my daughter would never realize I'd been shirking my motherly duties.

I forgot that she is perfectly attuned to the sound of my keyboard.

From down the hall and around the corner an indignant voice said, "Mommy, I see you're working!"

Oops.

Astute readers will recall that back in 2007 I started a little web site called AnthologyBuilder: A do-it-yourself bookstore where customers create personalized anthologies from preselected stories. Every once in a while someone asks me what happened to that.

Well, it's still there.

It brings in a few orders each month, and I'm still running all the day-to-day operations. The magnificent Linda Davis is helping me stay on top of the submissions pile, for which I am eternally grateful.

I have a ridiculously long list of features I'd like to add, including social media integration and ebook sales for authors who've opted in. Those plans are suffering a bit because AnthologyBuilder is a ten-person project and it's got, well... one web developer. Who also happens to be the managing editor, the publicist, the blog coordinator, the human resources gal, the customer service rep, the graphic designer and the owner.

Yeah.

This means that AnthologyBuilder's development involves frantic flurries of activity combined with long periods of coasting. It's coasting right now, and will continue to do so until I either acquire an investor or free up my schedule enough to pretend to be 10 people again.

I've got my nomadic tribes riding large, reptilienesque flightless birds -- sort of a cross between an ostrich, a parrot and a velociraptor.

I'm guessing that riding these beasts requires a bit more finesse than a four-legged mount, since the riders' weight plays a significant role in the creature's balance. What else is going to be different from an equestrian mount? Will the feathers cause problems? Will the feet need the same kind of care as horse hooves?

And most importantly: How do you steer the dang things? I'm having a hard time envisioning a bridle that would work well with a serpentine head and neck...

I'm pleased to report that Movement earned $94.88 during its first two weeks of release, not bad for a highly-priced short story that's available for free online. I transfered the money to the National Foundation for Autism Research last night.

Many, many thanks to everyone who bought a copy of Movement or blogged about the NFAR fundraiser.

When I started reading Brad Torgersen's "A Ray of Light", I was really hoping it wouldn't interest me. I'd foolishly downloaded the PDF version, and the text on my kindle screen was painfully small. I was really, really looking for an excuse not to keep reading.

But, curse you, Brad -- I was hooked after the first few paragraphs. So I finished the entire story and loved it. It is so totally on my shortlist for this year's Nebulas.

What's fascinating about this is that Torgersen's opening isn't what one would typically consider 'grabby'. There are no explosions, no heavy-handed mysteries, and no narrative allusions to what's about to happen. There's just a Dad, a daughter, and deep sea station.

Here, take a look:

My crew boss Jake was waiting for me at the sealock door. I’d been eight hours outside, checking for microfractures in the metal hull. Tedious work, that. I’d turned my helmet communicator off so as not to be distracted. The look on Jake’s face spooked me.

“What’s happened?” I asked him, seawater dripping from the hair of my beard.

“Jenna,” was all I got in reply. Which was enough.

I closed my eyes and tried to remain calm, fists balled around the ends of a threadbare terrycloth towel wrapped around my neck.

For a brief instant the hum-and-clank activity of the sub garage went away, and there was only a mental picture of my daughter sitting in her mother’s lap: two, maybe three years old, with a delightful nest of unruly ringlets sprouting at odd angles from her scalp. She’d been a mischief-maker from day one—hell on wheels in a confined space like Deepwater 12.

--from "A Ray of Light", Analog Science Fiction and Fact

The implication of trouble with Jenna shouldn't be enough to make me read through eleven pages of microscopic font. But it was.

I think a lot of the draw comes from the power with which the subtle details are provided. Jenna's delightfully unruly ringlets, suggesting that she has a personality to match. Microfractures, terrycloth, and seawater: vivid words that imply this is an author who can deliver a mighty fine tale. And deliver he does.

People who mail me free copies of books I'd been eyeing online and had regretfully decided against purchasing. (My reading list is long, and my pockets, alas, are not infinitely deep.)

I mean, I'm happy to look at books and stories from all my online friends. But when the book also happens to be one I've been drooling over... now, that's just cool. :)