Creativity

Camp NaNoWriMo and the Perfection Plague

KWhipkey 4 Comments

Week 2 of my participation in the REUTS Publications Camp Nano Team Competition (Whew! That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?) is drawing to a close and I’ve fallen further and further behind in word count thanks to the Procrastination Monster’s evil twin, the Time Thief. Just like the Dryer Gnomes, who sneak in when you aren’t looking to raid your socks, the Time Thief steals away minutes from your day. I’m sure you’ve had days where you start off well-intentioned, then life steps in and next thing you know, you look up to see it’s dinner time, and you could have sworn all you did was blink. Yep, that’s the Time Thief’s fault. Sometimes, if you listen hard enough, you can hear him laughing as he runs away with armloads of your missing minutes, grinning from ear to ear like the maniacal little bugger he is.

But that’s not actually what today’s post is about. No, I pledged to write each week about what I’d learned from my time spent at Camp Nano. What did I learn from week 2? That perfection is a plague.

Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me, Mister! I’m well aware that perfectionism is a common topic here on Nightwolf’s Corner, and you probably think I’m beating a dead horse. But hear me out; this time it’s got a different ending. I promise. 😉

The Perfection Plague is an illness that attacks your muse from the inside, slowly squeezing the life out of her like a giant boa constrictor. It’s highly contagious, spreading from writer to writer, and is eventually fatal– for the muse, not the writer. Symptoms include a tendency for alcoholic binging, a refusal to work when called upon, and abandoning you to the wolves of inner editors until you’re so frozen by the fear of writing something less than perfect that you write nothing at all.

If you’ve been paying attention to my posts over the past months, then it should be apparent that my own muse is bordering on being DOA. I’m surprised she hasn’t keeled over as it is. Maybe she’s slipping some kind of exotic cure made from rabid plot bunny fur into those fruity beach drinks she enjoys so much. I certainly haven’t been doing much to help her out, creating such high expectations for my overly-complicated, tangled narrative webs that some days, I can’t even bring myself to open the file for fear I’d just mess it up. Or, if I do manage to write, I agonize over it, revising and editing and sometimes just straight up deleting and starting over. Yeah, I’ve got the Perfection Plague bad. In fact, I’m probably Patient Zero.

But fear not, my fellow perfectionists, the Perfection Plague can be cured. (At least, I think. It’s kind of early to tell.) That’s where exercises like Camp Nano come in.

The whole point of Nano, if you recall, is to simply write. To throw all caution to the literary wind and get lost in the wild abandon of creative freedom like a naked hippie dancing in the rain at a music festival. Or, to be less poetic, to word vomit all over the screen until you hit that hideous goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. And, in case it’s not painfully obvious, that leaves very little room for perfection. In fact, it forces you to break the chains of expectation and just say @#%& it, following your muse down whatever weird and twisted rabbit hole she manages to find. It’s not pretty, and for a perfectionist, it can feel a lot like an exorcism.

But as painful as the process is, you learn something valuable– how to be prolific. Yes, nothing you write will be anywhere near your usual standards. Yes, you’ll feel like you’ve suddenly been struck with Schizophrenia as those inner editor wolves howl louder and louder. And yes, this novel will make your first attempts in grade school look like Pulitzer worthy masterpieces. But you know what? None of that matters. Because you’re writing. Constantly. And that lesson alone is worth the misery, the ulcers, the prescription for anti-anxiety meds you were forced to get when you ended up in the ER with a panic attack.

Seriously, it is.

I don’t know about you, but I had reached the final stages of the disease. I’d become so paralyzed with requirements for myself that my writing had come to a screeching halt. If I was lucky, I might eek out 300 words once a month. Maybe. On a good day. And part of that was due to the fact that I’d somehow gotten it into my head that I needed dedicated time to write. (Hmmmm, now where could I have gotten that idea from, blogosphere?) That I had to have the perfect storm of conditions– silence, hours of availability, limited distractions (I’m looking at you DVR), and inspiration. And if I didn’t have any of that, I didn’t write. The Perfection Plague had progressed from simply attacking the words I wrote to infecting the process itself, spreading like a cancer to overtake everything even remotely writing related. Even my plot bunnies were starting to suffer, dying with weak gasps shortly after birth because they weren’t strong enough to make it past the Gauntlet of Genericness. (Yep, totally made that word up.) A few were even eaten by the others in a fit of cannibalistic rage, combining their concepts into horrifying franken-bunnies I’m honestly kind of scared to write.

Then along comes Nano with a lovely little break from the complexities of Derek or swapping tenses in Kindred, or anything else I’d become mired in, and suddenly I was free. Like an asthma patient’s rescue inhaler, Nano cleared up my constricted creative passageways and I can write again. Freely. But more importantly, I now want to.  I actually look forward to those moments, however brief, I can steal some time to work on my manuscript; something I haven’t felt in years. I’m not saying that I’d stopped enjoying writing. Just that it had lost some of that sparkle of innocence you have as a teenager first starting out. When the pressure of creating a product worthy of charging money for didn’t exist and you hadn’t contracted the Perfection Plague yet. When you wrote simply because you loved it. That’s a nice feeling to remember.

I’ve written more in the last two weeks than I have in the last year, working whenever I can, even if all I have is ten minutes while I wait for my cup-of-noodles to cook. (What? I never claimed to be a culinary genius.) Is it brilliant? Definitely not. I’m embarrassed by the very thought of letting anyone read it. Does it terrify my editor side with the massive amounts of revision it will require? Most definitely. But that’s OK. My hope is that once Nano is over and this manuscript gets shelved in the darkest, dustiest archives of my computer’s hard drive, I can take what I’ve learned about being productive and apply it to my more complicated, perfection-mired projects and actually succeed in finishing them! If that happens, every second of torture endured will have been worth it.

I still don’t believe it’s wrong to be a perfectionist, that it’s a literary sin to edit and revise while you work, and I fully expect to return to that routine. But when that starts to stand in the way of ever finishing anything, when the Perfection Plague has withered your muse into a ghost, it’s time to try something new. After all, they didn’t coin the phrase, “Outside the box” for nothing. Care to join me?

How to Effectively Use Props in a Demo

KWhipkey Leave a comment

It’s that time of year again– Dance season!

Those of you who have followed me for a while are already familiar with my obsession over Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance. It’s my favorite part of the summer and if it ever gets cancelled, I will cry like a four year old whose lost their favorite blankie. No joke. I really mean that. *serious face*

To me, it’s the epitome of everything I wish martial arts demo teams would emulate– athleticism (which, come on, has always been part of the martial arts), grace (again, always been there), theatricality (yep, now we’re getting somewhere new), storytelling (totally foreign territory for martial artists), and performance (what? What’s that?). So it’s not surprising that this week’s post was inspired by a routine from the current season of So You Think You Can Dance. We’re only one week past the auditions and already they’re providing examples of things every demo should incorporate. Which is why July was always ushered in with a resounding chorus of groans from my team– they all knew that when Dance was on, they’d have to watch out for difficult new tricks making sudden appearances in the choreography. 😉

But anyway, on to today’s topic– the effective use of props in a demo. (There’s even a visual example courtesy of SYTYCD.)

Props are one of those notorious trouble spots for demo team choreographers. Most teams will either avoid them like the plague or go to the complete opposite extreme and overload their demo with them. (A prop is anything beyond the human bodies on your team. It can be costume, weapons, set design, anything but your team itself.) I understand; it’s confusing stuff.

My first demo featured a massive dragon similar to the ones you see during the Chinese new year, except medieval style. It required 8-10 people to man the thing (the head alone took someone with a significant amount of muscle to operate) and basically upstaged everything else on the floor. Now, granted, I was 15 and just starting out, but still. I fell prey to one of the fatal errors I see teams make– I allowed the prop to be bigger than everything else, and the story/choreography suffered for it. I wasted valuable manpower, hiding those 8-10 people under a massive black tarp for the entire demo; I had people standing around doing nothing, staring at the dragon like it was an altar to the demo team gods; and I placed the storytelling emphasis on a prop, allowing it to carry the entire performance. Needless to say, we didn’t win. But it provided a valuable lesson on the purpose and utilization of props. A lesson I’m about to give you.

Props should never ever be the focus of your demo.

If you find yourself spending more storytelling time on the props and less on the choreography, you’ve crossed to the dark side of demo team hell and you may as well kiss that shiny trophy goodbye. Yes, props are visually fascinating for an audience (we’re all over-grown mockingbirds, distracted by shinies), but they’re completely ineffective storytelling devices. They’re static, inanimate objects that only take on importance when someone uses them. So to expect a lifeless lump of material to carry your entire demo is demo team suicide.

An effective prop is one that is completely integrated with the rest of the demo. It’s the supporting role to your starring actors, reinforcing your message and enhancing the story. Which brings us to our example. The following video is an inspiring piece by choreographer Christopher Scott. This dude’s my hero. Seriously. Not only is his choreography brilliant, but he’s a master storyteller, seamlessly using musicality, props and staging in an enviable display of how to make the most out of a large group of talented people. I’ve long been a fan of his League of Extraordinary Dancers, so his appearance on SYTYCD was a match made in heaven. But enough of my gushing; watch the video. You’ll see for yourself how awesome he is. 😉

Pretty cool, wasn’t it? There are so many things this video could serve as an example of, from staging, to musicality, to even storytelling. But today’s focus is props. So I want you to watch the video again and this time really pay attention to the way the sand is integrated into the dance, how it almost becomes a dancer in it’s own right. Christopher Scott not only choreographed the guys, he choreographed the sand as well! This conscious attention to the way the sand moved placed emphasis on the exact moments he wanted to highlight (staging), created a visual echo of the musical nuances (musicality), and reinforced his message of how humanity/man is tied to the earth (storytelling). That’s how you use a prop effectively.

(Travis Wall is another choreographer who brilliantly uses props. Case in point, the blindfolded dance from this past week’s show.)

Now, I’m not recommending using something as messy as sand. Most of us will never perform in venues where we have a clean-up crew following behind us, erasing all evidence of our performance in seconds. But you can still take the principles Mr. Scott used and apply them to your own demos, your own props. The important thing to remember is that every prop needs to have a reason to exist, and that reason has to somehow support the larger whole of the demo. So before including any prop, ask yourself these simple questions:

1) What does this prop enhance? Staging, Musicality or Storytelling? (If you can’t answer yes to any of those three things, you don’t need it. )

2) Does including this prop take away focus from something else in the demo? (Think my massive dragon that basically ate the rest of the performance. Choreography and Story should always be your main focus. If the prop distracts from that, it needs to go.)

3) Can I effectively convey my message without the prop? (This is the best test for whether a prop is holding you back. If it’s a crutch, your demo will fall apart the second you take it away. Ideally, you should be able to perform your demo without any costumes or props and still convey the same story to the audience. Yes, it will be a little less impressive, relying heavily on your team’s acting ability and the audience’s imagination, but they’ll still get it. Adding the props should only serve to make that message more powerful, not be a requirement for comprehending your tale.)

By taking the time to really think about how and why you’re including a given prop, you’ll subconsciously transform it into it’s own character, like Christopher Scott did with the sand. This shift in thinking will then allow you to fully integrate it into the rest of your demo in a seamless way, taking it from a distraction to a dynamic and important part of your story. And that’s the difference between having a prop simply for cool factor, and effectively using it. Any questions?

Which Comes First, Character or Plot?

KWhipkey 5 Comments

This is the literary equivalent of the chicken and egg scenario. Plot needs character in order for it to resonate emotionally with readers, and character without plot is really just someone standing around doing nothing. But which comes first?

There are writers in both camps that insist one or the other is the penultimate starting point for a story. But I disagree with all of them. I don’t think there is any one way to start. I firmly believe that every writer is different and will create in a way that’s unique to them. To try and constrain that creative process to a strict set of rules is futile in my opinion. All it does is force writers who don’t naturally work that way to feel frustrated and inferior when their work fizzles and dies. Muses are fickle creatures, and prone to abandoning you when you try to force them into a rigid box. So instead of telling you that you absolutely must start with character, or plot, or even idea, I’m going to encourage you to experiment and find your own style.

But first, let’s take a look at the three different starting points, shall we? It’s hard to make an informed decision without all the facts, after all.
 

Character-Centric

 
Character-centric writers always start with a character. (You’ll see this approach a lot in fan fiction, where the only creative outlet left to the writer is character creation.) They create every last detail, from name, all the way to their relationship with their great aunt Matilda’s cat that got ran over when they were 4. These writers know their characters inside and out, to the point that you almost start to wonder if they’re creating a character for a novel or an imaginary best friend. Armed with pages and pages of character sheets, these writers have everything they need to get started– except a story.

Even though they’ve spent days, weeks or months learning every minute detail of this fictitious person, they don’t have a story yet. No one wants to read those pages and pages of character notes because they’re about as exciting as a clinical psych report to anyone but the author. You could have the coolest character in the world, but no one’s going to care unless you give him/her something to do. Which is why, oftentimes, you’ll notice character-centric authors struggle with plot. Since their focal point is the character, they simply don’t know how to create something interesting to fit them into, often resulting in a storyline that feels pointless, ambling around and around with no direction.

But, to their credit, character-centric authors school the rest of us when it comes to creating fully fleshed-out, believable characters. They just have to work a little harder in the plot department is all.
 

Plot-Centric

 
On the flip side of that coin is the plot-centric writer. These people start with a plot. They create every twist and turn, every multilayered goal and mini-quest in a road map of storytelling awesomeness. They know exactly how the story starts and ends and everything in between before they even put a word on paper. But the thing they don’t know? Their characters.

Characters are pawns to these writers, often showing up in outlines with nothing more than a placeholder name. The ins and outs of personality aren’t important unless it drives the plot. And often, that becomes a problematic downfall. Dull, cookie-cutter, two-dimensional characters are a hazard, a pot-hole too many plot-centric writers fall into. Just like the lack of plotting abilities in a character-centric story can leave readers yawning, the lack of rich characterization in a plot-centric work can destroy an otherwise amazing book.

Plot-centric writers have to pay extra attention to character development if they want any chance at resonating with readers emotionally. Plot only holds a reader’s interest so long; it’s the characters we really remember after we reach The End.
 

Idea-Centric

 
Outside of the character vs. plot debate is a third camp of writers– the idea-centric crowd. We (because this is the approach I use) are content to let the character and plot people duke it out over which element is more important because we go at it in a completely different way. The idea-centric writers don’t start with a character or a plot arc, they start with an idea, a concept. This can be a question– E. L. James has said she started with the question, “What would happen if you were attracted to somebody who was into the BDSM lifestyle, when you weren’t?” for her mega-hit 50 Shades of Grey— or a point of inspiration– Marie Lu’s Legend series started with her curiosity over how the central relationship between Jean Valjean (a famous criminal) and Javier (a prodigious detective) in Les Miserable would translate into a more modern tale– or even a deeper message– The Hunger Games is actually a statement against the voyeuristic tendencies of American Television according to author Suzanne Collins.

When done well, the idea-centric approach combines the best of the other two, creating an extremely rich experience readers tend to remember long after they finish the book. But the key there is “when done well.” Idea-centric writers have to be careful that they don’t start to sound preachy, especially those with a message to impart. Character and plot can both suffer if the focus is too heavily placed on the root idea, resulting in an even bigger trainwreck than either of the two previous approaches. So while this is the method I use, I’m definitely not saying it’s perfect.

There are many people that will try to tell you their method is best. I’m not one of them. You find characters the most appealing part of a story? Go for it! Be character-centric. Just keep a watchful eye on your plot. You think plot is the all-important end-all? Great! Plot-centric it is. Have fun guiding us through your labyrinth of action. Just make sure you don’t forget about your characters along the way. And if, like me, you find plot bunnies lurking in the weirdest of places, go with it! Some of the strongest works on the market started that way. Just make sure you rein in your high horse before you reach preachy-ville.

Regardless which of the three starting points you choose, there will be things to watch out for. Each has its strength, and each has its weakness. But knowing the pitfalls ahead of time lets you avoid them before they ruin your masterpiece. The point is, there really is no right or wrong method, no matter what random-people-on-the-internet say. If it works for you, use it. If it doesn’t, look for something else that does. That’s really all there is to it.

As for our chicken and egg conundrum, you tell me– which comes first? Character, plot or idea?

The Curse of Being a Slow Writer

KWhipkey 6 Comments

I don’t think it’s news to anybody that I am the equivalent of a sloth when it comes to writing fiction. At least, it shouldn’t be. I’ve said it quite a few times. But usually, I try to put a positive spin on that fact, embracing my molasses covered words and declaring it proudly, like it’s some kind of statement of quality. But the truth is, it sucks. It is the single most frustrating thing in my writing career. So today, I’m going to indulge in a moment of venting negativity. Today, I’m not going to try to convince you that it’s OK to be slow; that it’s alright to procrastinate with research, or editing, or any of the other excuses I’ve told myself are justifications for slackerhood. Because it isn’t. If you want to make it in this industry, you have to be prolific. That’s just a fact.

We had a saying at Dragon Heart Tang Soo Do: “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll have to be a horrible warning.” So let me be your horrible warning. Being a slow writer isn’t a blessing, it’s a curse. Here are the top 5 reasons you don’t want to be me.
 

#1: Limited Productivity Potential

 
At my current rate, I’ll be lucky to finish a novel a decade. And since I also conveniently dragged my feet in deciding to take my writing career seriously, that means I’m joining the party late. So that puts my productivity level at direct odds with the amount of life I have left. If (fingers crossed) nothing horrific happens, I could potentially be looking at a long and happy life. But how much of that will I realistically spend writing? I’m going to say that probably by my 70’s, I’ll be running out of oomph, and likely Carpal Tunnel will get me before then. So given my late admittance that I really wanted to be a writer after all, that optimistically gives me a productivity potential of 4 books. (4?! That’s pathetic. This is why I dislike math, it never pans out in my favor!)

Now, say you were smarter than me and realized early on that you were destined to write for a living. I’m not so ancient that you’d have that much of a head start. Most people figure out their life’s passion during their twenties, and a lucky few know by their late teens. So at best, you’re a book and a half ahead of me. That’s still not a rosy picture of successful writerdom. I suppose there is a chance that you don’t see yourself being prolific. That you only have one or two titles in you and then plan to call it good. But I think the majority of us choose to be writers because we’re bursting with ideas waiting to find their way to the page. Am I wrong?

Which leads us to reason #2 why you don’t want to be me.
 

#2: Royally Pissed Off Plot Bunnies

 
The thing about plot bunnies is they breed like, well, bunnies. I have yet to go longer than a month without finding another cute and fluffy little detour hopping innocently across my path. (Innocently? Yeah, right. Those little buggers know my muse can’t resist them. They’re about as innocent as creepy children in a horror film.) So when I compare my maximum potential output (the measly 4 books) to the avalanche of rabbit fur weighing me down, you can guess what happens.

Personally, I don’t want face the legions of plot bunnies running around in my head when they realize that only 4 will ever get their moment in the spotlight. They’ll probably start a riot. They might even turn carnivorous. I don’t know. But I do know that they’ll be royally pissed off, and that can’t be good for my muse. Or anyone, really.

So unless you’re one of those rare writers content to write only a couple books, I’m guessing you’ll be facing the same predicament. And in case the thought of angry, carniverous plot bunnies hasn’t scared you away from my path of slackerness, let’s move on to reason #3.
 

#3: Getting Lost in the Discoverability Jungle

 
It’s a well-known fact that the fastest way to gain momentum in a writing career is to continually publish new content. Whether you’re self-publishing (especially if you’re self-publishing) or traditionally published, name recognition is everything. In an ever-growing jungle of titles, being prolific enough to constantly have your work in front of readers is the only way to survive. No problem, right? I just established that, like me, you have a plethora of ideas to choose from. “Prolific” will be easy!

Hear that screeching of the brakes? Yeah, you forgot about one key element– reason #1. When you’re as slow as I am, your chances of consistently staying on your readers’ minds goes out the window. I’ll survive in the Amazon jungle about as long as a fruit fly with that level of productivity. There’s no amount of marketing in the world that can save me from sinking into the mire of oblivion.

Pretty convincing case for not being me, no? But just for kicks, let’s say the issues of discoverability aren’t really that bad. That I’m being over dramatic in my snarkiness. (I did warn you I would be venting negativity.)

Welcome to reason #4.
 

#4: Being Stuck in a Permanent Day Job

 
Every writer dreams of waking up every day and spending the entire time writing. But the reality is that most of us still have to work day jobs. The fridge doesn’t fill itself, unfortunately, and the bill collectors don’t look kindly on IOU’s. So chances are, unless you’re secretly a billionaire, married to a billionaire, or homeless, you need some source of income. Where do you get it? The dreaded day job.

Now, some of you may be lucky enough to actually have a career you enjoy. But the rest of us punch the time clock like we’re signing in for a prison sentence. The only thing that gets us through the day is that shiny dream of someday getting to say “F you!” to the boss and walking away with certain fingers held high.

But what happens to that shiny dream when you write like a snail? It shrivels up and disappears. Yep, that’s right, your shiny dream is now a rotting, wrinkled hunk that looks like a dried apricot. Why? Because you’re too slow to be considered prolific. And since you’re not prolific, no one knows who you are. And because no one knows who you are, your books don’t sell. And when your books don’t sell, you get to offer that chicken-scratched IOU to the bank and pray they let you keep your house.

Such a pretty picture isn’t it? I think I’m rather gifted at casting the most depressing slant ever on the situation. But in case you missed the lesson in that dreary portrayal, let me reiterate it. If you don’t want to be stuck permanently in that day job you hate, don’t be me!
 

#5: The Burden of Emotional Turmoil

 
By now, I hope you’re seeing the downfall of succumbing to the slow-writing curse. If not, (man, you’re a hard cookie to convince!) here’s one final reason.

I’ve already covered the practical, tangible reasons it sucks to be a slow writer. But there’s also an emotional aspect. When you move with the agility of a tortoise, you tend to find yourself battling things like frustration, irritation, depression, anger, all the lovely turmoil that goes with swimming in the negative side of life. That self-doubt all writers experience? Yeah, quadruple it about a gazillion times. That lure of perfectionism? You’ll be chasing after it like a siren’s song. The regret over letting your dream slowly starve to death and die? You’ll carry it around until you start to look like Atlas, carrying the world on his back.

My point is, eventually, you’ll find yourself so immersed in the quicksand of negative emotions that you’ll end up writing a blog post just like this. 😉

So there you have it. The top 5 reasons why you shouldn’t be me; why you shouldn’t succumb to the curse and let your writing career languish on the back burner. If you already find yourself hovering dangerously close to joining my sinking ship, don’t despair. There’s still hope. All you have to do is kick your lazy booty into gear. Figure out where you have the time to write and commit to it even if it means sacrificing sleep, weekends and watching Celebrity Game Night. (Seriously, though, that last one’s not a sacrifice. Whoever decided that sitting around watching celebrities play board games was quality television needs to be fired. Immediately.) You can do it. I have faith in you. In fact, how about we make a pact? Let’s take all the negativity and turn it on it’s head. Let’s laugh in the face of frustration and prove to everybody, including ourselves, that we do have what it takes to be writers and we can be prolific. Let’s break the curse together. Deal?

From the Editor’s Desk: A Foundation in Wisdom by Robert Loyd Watson

KWhipkey Leave a comment

This week, I’m introducing a new feature to Nightwolf’s Corner (seems like I’m doing that a lot lately). As an editor, (both freelance and under REUTS Publications), I have the wonderful opportunity to see amazing novels during their developmental phase. And I wanted to find a way to share them with all of you as they became available. (I also wanted to find a way to help support the authors that trusted me with their manuscripts.) So think of these posts as my own personal book recommendations, straight from the editor’s desk.
 

A Foundation in Wisdom

By Robert Loyd Watson

 

Cover Image for A Foundation in Wisdom

 

History repeats itself. This is what I taught, and always believed. Then I met Sheridan, a man hitchhiking down the highway without a care in the world – a lonely figure who told me history, and the world, was ending. His evidence was the story of a mathematician who tried to prove the world didn’t exist.

It was a silly proposition. Nobody can prove the world doesn’t exist. But as I became more convinced Sheridan was right, that the proof lay at the edge of reality, I could only wonder, where would we go?

 

A Foundation in Wisdom is not your average tale. An intellectual adventure, steeped in mystery and suspense with a quirky sense of humor, it calls up shades of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and cross-breeds it with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Intriguing blend, isn’t it?

The book starts by introducing us to John Bartlebee, a traveling scholar that teaches History seminars across the country. On the way to his next appointment, he stops to help a guy stranded on the side of the road, offering him a ride. But from the moment he meets Sheridan, he knows something’s not quite right about him, and very soon realizes that he may have made a grave mistake by picking him up. Sheridan insists the world is ending, and proceeds to offer John proof in the form of a story.

Sheridan’s protagonist, Marcus, is a young mathematician trying to find his place in the world. When he accidentally stumbles on the ability to prove away existence, he’s set on a quest to discover what existence really means. What follows is a fascinating cast of quirky characters and an adventure of intricate twists and turns. All while the mystery of Sheridan continues to build and John starts to wonder if maybe he isn’t quite so crazy after all.

Robert Watson has created a unique blend of mathematics philosophy and fiction; a refreshingly different combination that I’d never seen before. He expertly builds tension around Sheridan and John’s half of the story while keeping us entertained with Marcus’s. But underneath the sarcastic, slightly strange plot, Watson poses some deep philosophical questions.

“What does it mean to exist?”

“What if you could prove the world away? Would you?”

To learn more about A Foundation in Wisdom and the rest of An Orthogonal Universe, please visit the series website. And if you’d simply like to purchase it, (which you should! It truly is fantastic!) you can find it in both digital and print versions at Amazon.

Thank you to Robert for allowing me to be a part of your journey. I wish you all the success you deserve. 🙂