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So after an incredibly verbose fall, the last couple months have been virtually silent in comparison. As I've mentioned before, I work in publishing. My managers finally acknowledged they weren't giving me enough work so I'm moving to a list1 that is changing its business strategy. Thus lots of meetings, lots of new work, and of course I'm still responsible for my old position until they hire someone new2.

While the work has been satisfying, it's made it hard to post here. It's also made it hard to keep up with other people's blogs (and commenting doesn't work so well on my smart phone, so I can't even do it on the train). I was griping the other day that the thing I miss most about LiveJournal is that it notifies you when someone replies to a comment you've made. I hate repeatedly checking the comments of a blog when my last comment remains the last one. I just want to know that someone has replied. Why don't you do that, Blogger?!?!

What's that? It does? D'OH! So next to the comment box, there's a link that says "Subscribe by Email." By default, this is turned off, but simply click it and you'll get an email any time someone responds after you (don't do this on very popular blogs or you'll get hundreds of emails and go insane). I always forget to do it because it's not included in the comment box and there isn't an option to turn it on as the default. Still, it's a habit I should get into. Commenting on a blog is okay, but I enjoy genuine conversation, a back and forth between participants3. At some point or another, you just stop checking to see if there's new


1 A list is like a genre in publishing. An editor and a project manager will have a list (or sometimes multiple lists) they call their own. In this case, I managed media content for Developmental Psychology (a big money maker, but the content is pretty much the same). I am moving over to Political Science, which has a much more diverse publishing set. It also publishes all its content at the same time, so that'll be a fun challenge.

2 And they haven't even posted the position yet. D'oh!

3 Who's old enough to remember the early chatrooms of the early intertubes? I spent many an hour my freshman year in Chathouse, marveling at this thing called the internet and the hot girl in New Jersey who liked me. ;)4

4 16 years later and we're still friends on Facebook. How do ya like them apples?

Vick--Vickie Vale! Vickie Vale!

When I was younger, I loved comic books. Loved them. My friend Jeremy introduced them to me at the beginning of high school and there began a brief obsession with the funnybooks. I won't say that I grew out of them, because that's condescending and inaccurate. There are still books I enjoy even though I don't buy comics any more (Atomic Robo is always the first book I recommend to people interested in seeing what a quality comic book is like).

In most comics, especially the mainstream ones written by an incredibly inbred cadre of writers (meaning that they just move from book to book without adding new blood, not that they themselves are actually inbred), too much of it is written to appeal to the teenage mindset. When Batwoman was introduced as the new main character of Detective Comics, the fact that she was a lesbian was addressed in a way that not only made me less sympathetic to the character (she blamed the victim card to win an argument in her own internal monologue!) but pulled me out of the story because she's unlike any real-life lesbian I know.

More over, I find 22 pages limiting to tell a story, especially when the pacing needs to be kept up and the story needs to be refreshed so that everything feels new (it's hard to get new readers into a comic that numbers in the 600s).

I bring this up not because today's post is about comics (though obviously it is now), but because I want you to understand why I don't like Tim Burton's rendition of Batman. I needed to preface all that because Burton is one of those people (like Gaiman) that has a fanatical fan base. Say you don't like Tim Burton's work and people freak out. I like some movies (Nightmare Before Christmas, Big Fish, etc.) but his Batman incarnations are particularly frustrating. Sure everyone likes the first one, but they like it because it so perfectly encapsulated the '80s, not because it was a good Batman flick. Other than the selection of Michael Keaton as Batman (who looked just like the comic's Bruce Wayne at the time), I just don't care for it (Kevin Smith's comment that Tim told him he had never read a comic book of any kind was particularly telling).

Now, after all that backstory, the reason why I bring this all up, is that because when I'm browsing Twitter or some other online gathering place and I see a picture of a particularly attractive woman, I think to myself "Stop the press! Who is this?" and stop scrolling.

I did not realize I was doing it until I caught myself doing it this weekend on two different occasions. I don't blame the movie so much as I blame the first season of Chuck which included that joke and is a thousand times better than Tim Burton's Batman movies.

(This post had no footnotes in them because Nate Wilson used them all in his blog post today.)

Rewriting is HARD!

I revise. I rarely rewrite. In fact, the only thing I've tried to rewrite is 7TH SACRIFICE and I scrapped the entire incomplete manuscript, so that should almost be called writing, as there isn't much "re" involved.

Coming on a year ago, I finished the manuscript for WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING. I got feedback from an agent who said he would have preferred the story if Bastin and not Nashau had been the main character. This was similar to feedback Elizabeth Poole gave me. But I didn't want to rewrite with Bastin as the main character. Bastin's story's been told before. Nashau's story hadn't. So I tabled that feedback and went on with my other works.

Then THE TRIAD SOCIETY was a near miss. Some of the feedback was there was a particular section that seemed to ramble. In truth, that section had been a shout out to WANTED. The stories are in the same world even though they're not in the same kingdom or with the same characters. I wanted to show the world evolving based on the impact of the stories. Now, I could cut this section, but there are other parts in that section that play directly to the ending (which I don't think the agent ever got to), so I'm averse to cutting it for the moment.

My plan had been, and why I kept that section in there, was once the agent said she wanted to rep TRIAD, that I had another story in that setting that would do well to come out first (yeah, I know publishing doesn't always work that way, but it couldn't hurt to try!). She passed on TRIAD, though, and this was devastating1. I didn't quite come to terms with getting so close and coming up short like I usually do (granted, I don't think I've ever been that close). So I begin scheming, as hobbits are wont to do. If I can't use TRIAD to sell WANTED, maybe I can use WANTED to sell TRIAD2.

I go back and ponder--yet again--what WANTED would be like with Bastin as the main character. But I don't just ponder, I start rewriting it. I delete the first four chapters and look at the story anew.

...

Holy crap, this is better.

...

Holy crap, this is so much better. So I began the rewrite. WANTED wasn't bad before. But in hindsight, it had some water weight to shed. It's the difference between being chubby and being svelt. I've cut 21,000 words so far (actually more than that, but I've written a few thousand new words). My final word count will drop from 150k to something more around 125k maybe 130k. While the reduced word count has diminished the world building slightly, it's a much tighter story in all.

BUT (you knew there would be a but, right?), REWRITING IS HARD! Sure revision is hard, but rewriting is HARD. You have to approach characters fresh. They might not be the people they were before. You need to remember to incorporate the details that your brain is telling you you've already included. You need to not repeat yourself, keep the new plot straight compared to the old plot (chapter 32 is now chapter 12, that impacts everything in between). ANNNND, you have to come to terms with you're writing a first draft of a completed manuscript. How hard is that? You're going to be upset when the stuff needs more polish and you're all like, but I already finished this damn book. It shouldn't be sucking.

But it does suck my friend, because rewriting is hard. Breathe, count to 10, and put your nose to the grindstone. In the end you'll be a noseless author with a rewritten manuscript and a bloody grindstone.


1 Whenever you're sad after a rejection others tell you that it happens to everyone and to keep on going. This is absolutely true in every sense. BUT, do not think that does not mean you're not permitted to feel down. Absolutely feel down. It's called disappointment for a reason. But you're only allowed so much time to feel down. After that, either start writing or start scheming. I recommend the former.

2 Look, remember that part you thought was rambling? Make sense now?3 Wheeeee!!!!

3 It would have made sense before if you had finished the damn manuscript. *pout*4

4 Stop pouting and acting like a child. Go write your fucking book.

Reading is Fundamentals

Today's post is written on my phone while I take the late train into work. Will be busy as soon as I sit down, so it's now or never.

Someone commented on a blog I read how the blogger must feel so proud for buying books as gifts. A coworker of mine only reads classics because she likes feeling superior to people who don't. I don't get these mindsets. The latter is just dumb, mofe telling of her character more than anything, but the former... I own a lot of books. All readers do. I cannot think of a single book I own that would make me proud.

Reading is one of many media people use for entertainment and learning. I don't get the weight people put on it as the most important thing EVAR! I like movies and plays and music too.

Bordering on the Ridiculous

Sara Megibow posted recently that she "did her part to help Borders" by buying a book there. And all I can think is, you either screwed the publisher or screwed the author by buying there. If Borders doesn't pay for the books it's selling, someone has to take the loss. Either the publisher will take that hit, or they won't count is as a sale and the author will take the hit or maybe they'll both share a little bit in the screwage. Either way, the only way they get paid is if Borders recovers and Borders isn't going to recover.

The "doing her part" thing is what bothers me. All of a sudden there's some kind of community obligation to save Borders from itself. And yes, Borders brought this on itself. It used to be dominant over Barnes & Noble and while sure Amazon dramatically upended the industry, it could just as well be Barnes & Noble teetering on bankruptcy while Borders becomes the last brick and mortar mega-bookstore. Bad management, poor planning and implementation, bad business. And for as frequently as agents remind authors that writing is a business, that fact never seems to apply to bookstores. Borders is a business and it failed. Yes it represented the third-largest book seller in the industry (not represents like some are still saying--if it's not paying publishers, it's the largest book thief in the industry).

Borders does not have such loyal clientele that if it goes out of business, they'll quit reading. This isn't something we need to do to save the industry. It represents a marked difference in methodology with its competitors, one that I've liked as a customer. But it is simply incapable of functioning as a business, so that doesn't matter. To buy at Borders now is to effectively buy a pirated copy of the book.

I can't help think of Amtrak. Not a lot of you have been on an Amtrak train. That's why the government gives them money every year to stay in business. They don't draw customers. Amtrak tickets are the same or more expensive than flying and the trip time is five times as long. We "save" Amtrak every year because the only companies interested in buying it are European and we couldn't have that. Better to throw millions of dollars to a company that doesn't know how to function in its own business than to let Europeans try and make a profit on American soil.

While I am liberal in most of my political persuasions, this is one instance where the free market is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Borders has failed as a company. It will now go out of business and its marketshare will be taken by those capable enough to do so. This isn't a cause for writers and industry insiders to rally around. There is no noble cause here. They weren't the victim of monopolization or unfair government pressures. They were a business that failed to do what it set out to do.

It's time we turn our attention to those companies that are still surviving. You want to do your part, buy a book from a store that actually pays the people that make the book.

This has to have been told somewhere

Okay those of you who read sci fi, tell me the name of this book. There's no way this hasn't been written before. It's so fundamentally classic that I'm surprised I've given it a second thought.

Idea for a new story came to me on Friday (third of the week, actually, but I didn't write the other two down because they didn't seem like they had enough to flesh out to a full story). This one is about a person who uncovers a vast conspiracy. Robots are infiltrating humanity. What he sees as familiar coworkers are actually just cyborgs. When one malfunctions, he learns the truth and the chase is on. The robots are coming for him and he has to flee and find others who know the truth so he can save humanity!

Pretty standard stuff, yeah? In the end he discovers that they robots aren't coming after him to silence him but because he's a malfunctioning robot himself. In fact, there are no humans left. They died off a long time ago. He and those others he meets that "know the truth" are in fact all malfunctioning.

So there's no way someone else hasn't written this story. I don't read a lot of sci fi (I stick more to fantasy), so someone tell me the name of this novel so I don't invest the time to right it only to find out it's a novel by John Scalzi or something.

NPH Poll

Despite all the snow, I have been wicked busy at work. I have a number of half-finished posts, none of which I am in the mood to finish now. Instead...A POLL!

Okay, not with the regular poll widget because it messes with my site design. Really, I should have said...A QUESTION! Or...A PROMPT!

BEST NIEL PATRICK HARRIS ROLE:

Dr. Horrible - "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"

Steve the Monkey - "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

NPH - "Harold Kumar Go to White Castle"

Barney - "How I Met Your Mother"

Doogie Howser - "Doogie Howser, M.D."


Discuss:

Loose Sheep

Writing a novel is a daunting thing. It doesn't happen in a day, so it's easy to forget things that you introduced early on. One of the things you have to do during revision is find all the loose threads and take care of them. You may miss things. You can be so focused on making sure each word choice is the best and the pacing is appropriate that you might ignore something that feels inconsequential to the character, but thematically (and to the reader) is very important.

In my case, driving to work today, I was trying my hand (YET AGAIN) at writing a query that will grab people's attention. What I came up with exposed an unresolved plot issue so large that I can't even call it a loose thread. It's the entire damn fleece. It's a loose sheep.

Jehovah's mother sold her children to get passage to the platform city up above. Jehovah goes up above and not once do I address his mother (at least I don't remember doing so). What the hell am I thinking? If I were a reader and went through a book that didn't address this issue, I would have many course words for the talent of the author.

Oi!


From the Rejectionist, here's what finding a loose sheep feels like:

Another Selby Invitational

Saturday was another Selby Invitational. Winter is a hard time to gather friends and this was no different. We had a number of last-minute cancellations due to illness. Regardless, there were nine of us in all, allowing for some larger fun party games and some smaller games.

Telestrations made another appearance. If you're looking for a good party game, this is your go to option. Take Pictionary and cross it with Operator/Telephone and let the laughs ensue. I marveled this time around at some words that deviated drastically and actually managed to make it back to their original word. How did you get Butterfly from Zombie Death Ninja?!?!

7 Wonders was introduced to yet more players. For the first time ever, this did not yield an immediate replay. Usually new players go through three games before looking for something else to play. That's okay, though. Both because I lost and because we got to learn more games.

I learned Pente, which my friend Britt introduced me to. That's a quick, fun, cerebral game.

I also had a rematch on Gobblet. When I taught my friend Hal how to play, we had an intense match, the longest I had ever had up to that point. He defeated me in our first game and I swore revenge and revenge I had! ...after losing again. Our last game saw every piece on the board. It was intense, but I persevered.

I got to try a few new games too, both of which had sinking themes (perhaps we're planning ahead for when all this snow melts). One you were playing rats trying to get off a sinking ship. The other you're treasure hunters trying to get off a sinking island. This latter is from the same guy that made Pandemic. I think it's the better of the two, honestly. It's not SO geared to make you lose like Pandemic frustratingly is.

And of course, along with the games, we had delicious food (olive crustini, parmasean pastry puffs, Swedish meatballs, Helluva good dip, vegetables, and others) and wonderful friends. We do it once a quarter (else we break our grocery budget) and it's a wonderful experience very time.

I hope you had a good weekend too. (That was Saturday. Sunday I quite literally sat around in my robe all day reading Peter V. Brett's THE WARDED MAN. I'll probably post about that book soon.)

What's in a Name?

On Twitter today, Ricki Schultz expressed her frustration with choosing a title. I commented that I love titles and do not begin a new work without one (it's one of the rules!). she asked me how I make a title I'm satisfied. Required to offer a response in 140 characters or less, I found that the answer is not so simple or so brief.

Agents often say if you can write a novel, you can write a query letter. This seems like it should be so, but I am HORRIBLE at queries. I shudder to think what that means for my writing! :) In the same way, I think if you can write a novel, you can come up with a title (maybe those query letters are a little harder then you give them credit for, buddy!).

When you're writing a novel, every word choice matters. Sure the reader may not appreciate it or even notice, but we're not writing for the reader. We're writing to make the best story we can and whether they notice a bad word choice, we do. So we craft our stories down to the period. A period vs a question mark vs an ellipsis. These things matter. It's how we establish cadence, how we move our story from beginning to end.

Titles need to do that too. They need to reach up off the cover, grab a person walking by, and shout, "Read me!" So how do I do it? Well, I think of the story that I plan on writing and try to find a short phrase that best represents that story while sounding like something I would want to read. That's my test. If I wouldn't pick up a book because of its title, I'll never use that title.

Like yesterday's new story idea: Captain Majors and the Super Squad: Soldiers of Tomorrow. This sounds perfect for a campy '50s sci fi program but completely wrong for the serious topic the novel covers. The title I'm leaning to now is BEDEVILED DOGS. How did I go from CM&TSS:SOT to BD? Well aside from the tone not matching, that first was incredibly long for a book. It could work if it had to, but in this case it doesn't work at all, so let's not even try to save anything from that. Where does that leave us? Three Marines that survive an Ambush in Fallujah. They see an old program accurately predict their battles, causing all kinds of emotional distress, paranoia, and fear.

Marines are also called Devil Dogs. They are tormented by the fact that their pain was foretold. They are bedeviled. BEDEVILED DOGS.

Why isn't this a perfect title? Well, it's dependent on you knowing that a Marine is a Devil Dog. The cover illustration can go a long way selling this. But it still feels a little hokey, so this one doesn't immediately go in the can. If a title feels like you're trying to be catchy, then it's never catchy. It has to be organic.

I wish I could write a bullet list and say here are the things you need to take into account when naming your title, but I've been staring at my computer for awhile. How I approach it is "sell me on your novel in three words." I didn't say tell me about it. I said sell me. You need to convince me to read your novel in three words, how do you do it? (Granted, by this method, Firefly would have been named Cowboys in Space, but whatever.)

I will admit, I'm not better at instructing how to pick a good title because I have been known to pick a title at the same time I had the idea. THE TRIAD SOCIETY? Yup, the title was the second thing I thought of (the first being men in a steam-filled alley wearing top hats). THE LOST LEGION? Hell, it was the title that gave me the idea for the story.

Titles are your pitch to the reader. It describes tone and topic, style and substance. Find the kernel of awesome that is your story and you'll find it to be 1-5 words that you feel wouldn't describe anything else you write.

Or I could be full of it. Who knows. :)

Captain Majors and the Super Squad: Soldiers of Tomorrow!

So I don't know where this idea came from. It hit me while I was driving home from work. It's incomplete, though. Still, it's worth writing down so that I can work on it later if the mood takes me. The interesting thing is that it's not a fantasy book. I don't get the sense that it's sci fi either. It feels more like a popular fiction where there are sf elements in it but it has a broader market appeal so they call it "fiction" and be done with it.

ANYWAY...main character is a decorated Iraqi Freedom vet. He survived the worst fighting in 2003-2005 including all the fighting in Fellujah. His platoon was ambushed by insurgents and only a handful of them survived. He's cycled back to the real world and is off his tours while he goes through physical therapy over some kind of injury that prevents him from being sent back to Iraq/Afghanistan.

It's not your typical, "I'm scarred by war" kind of story. While it's not easy to just reinsert yourself into a non-war environment, he has a wife and family and friends and they have enough experience as a military family to help him work his way back to equilibrium.

One thing he likes is golden age television. All the early black and white stuff right after Vaudeville. All the way up to the pulp sci fi of the 50s. All the space ranger and silly stuff like that. While garage saling, they find a DVD boxed set of "the greatest shows of public television." It's a collection of public television programming from across the country.

One of the shows is "Captain Majors and the Super Squad: Soldiers of Tomorrow!" After gaining a cult following, it aired only one episode on national TV and was cancelled. It was seen as not futuristic enough.

When he watches the episode, he sees that Captain Majors has a cell phone and a blue tooth. There aren't flying cars and they're not on the moon. They're dressed like Marines, carry modern rifles, and use modern military parlance. Then the "action" begins and Main Character sees that the episode is a perfect reenactment of one his own missions from Iraq. He gathers a few other episodes and finds them to be perfectly accurate as well.

I am waffling on how this is happening. I'll have to make a decision later. That's what I got for now, though.

Holy Balls!

I have been pondering it for months and I finally made a decision. An agent gave me feedback on WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING. He wanted Bastin to be the main character rather than Nashau. I've discussed that here before. Bastin is clearly the most likable, charismatic of the group, but the story was Nashau's and I didn't want to give that up.

So after a lengthy amount of pondering, I finally saw the story as Bastin's while keeping Nashau's subtext. Thus, I chopped off the initial four chapters (which were all Nashau and Podome) and condensed them to a single chapter 2. I kept the alive/dead juxtaposition that I loved in the original draft (something you won't understand unless you've read it, but take my word for it, it's awesome) and have moved on through chapter three.

You know how people often say they can't go back and read their own work? That they find it embarrassing? Not me. I LOVE this story. LUVRE IT! I wrote the damn thing and after watching Bastin hoodwink Farmer, I was just bouncing up and down on my seat. Holy balls this is a good story!

I will revise Podome/Nashau's story and hopefully inject more of Bastin's early energy later into the story. And then the hardest part: I'll need to write a new query for it.

JEHOVAH'S HITLIST will be the next story I query once I get beta reader feedback, but this one will follow shortly thereafter. I consider it a significant enough revision that requerying is appropriate. I have tentatively changed the name to FLIMFLAM just so I can keep the two stories separate. Not sure if I'll keep WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING as the final title. It seemed to turn some people off.

(This means I'm suspending work on 7Sac for the moment. I'm having a crisis of confidence following my rejection and can no longer manage the pacing. I'll need to get my feet back under me before I can continue on that one.)

Cheating at Dreaming

Monday night I dreamed that I was selected for the first New Hampshire HUNGER GAMES. This was not an event to celebrate Suzanne Collins' popular YA trilogy. This was a handful of people being send into the wilderness of New Hampshire to fight to the death until only one remained.

There were some differences between this dream Hunger Games and the literary reality. Obviously we had not risen up against a capital established after the collapse of the United States. Also, we were able to equip ourselves from a selection of various items before going into the arena (unlike the book where all the equipment was in the arena). There were only 4-6 contestants total rather than the 24 of the various districts. And most noticeably, the book existed in this dream world. This gave me a significant advantage because it turned out I was the only one who read the book and thus truly appreciated just how dangerous this thing we were going into would be.

I got a backpack full of various survival goods, water, rations, sleeping bag, tent, and as a weapon, I got...a pick axe. Don't ask me why. There weren't any guns or bows or knives. I don't even think this was meant to be a weapon. It was with the rest of the survival gear.

We are dropped into our arena, which is simply the forested White Mountains of New Hampshire. It's dark, night is already on us, and everyone scatters in different directions. Not much occasion for a melee if there's no cornucopia and only six total contestants. Everyone goes off to find a place to camp and rest so we can start fighting tomorrow when the sun comes up.

What? That's crazy. This thing has started. None of them understand, which means I have an even greater advantage. No one is hunting me. I move along a valley looking for the most advantageous spot when I see a field to my left. Dead center with no trees or cover or anything, one of the other contestants has set up a tent. There's a lantern on inside and I can see him/her moving about. Seriously? This one is going to be easy. My pick will go right through the tent. (S)He won't even know I'm there until it's over.

I make for the field and that's when I hear something behind me. I turn around and see what I think is another contestant--though she looks a lot like the little girl from "The Ring," white shirt, white pants, hair hanging over her face. And much like the girl from "The Ring," she shuffles when she walks but does so at extreme speeds. There's a cool little sound effect (this is a dream after all) and she's right in front of me!

Oh no, she's a Muttation (the stupidest word from that entire trilogy--seriously, they can still be called Mutts as a shortening of Mutation)! I lunge at her with my pick at the same time she comes at me. I only hit her in the shoulder with the haft.

My dream freezes. I am annoyed that I didn't just kick this mutt's ass. That was going to be a glorious overcoming of fear and surprise to show that I was destined to be the victor but instead I just whacked her on the shoulder with a piece of wood. How lame is that?

So I rewind my dream and react a few seconds earlier, sinking the head of my pick axe through the soft part of the mutt's shoulder. That's right, I cheat in my dreams.

(My dreams, my rules!)