Escaping the List

I love fantasy but there are fantasy characters that make me put a book down as soon as I see they're involved.

Vampires
Werewolves
Zombies
Dragons

Wait, what? Dragons? How could dragons be on the list? It's the most iconic monster in all of fantasy. Smog, anyone?

And that's the thing. The dragon is the most overdone creature in the genre. No one does anything interesting with them. No one twists them in new ways. It's the same hard-scaled, fire breathing, treasure hoarding, lanced knight riding on its back because this super powerful creature is somehow still beholden to humans, monster in every book.

There are some books I'm missing out on. I've been told by numerous trustworthy sources that I'm missing some worthwhile novels because of this policy (TWELVE, THE GREYFRIAR, etc.) and it got me to thinking. Maybe I'm missing something worth reading. Now I could read either of the above because vampires are so high up on the list, it'll take more than some really good recommendations for me to pull them off. Sparkle or no sparkle, no vampires nada.

In 1999, I gave up watching TV. It seemed like nothing good was on TV and the commercials were atrocious! I didn't give the tube a try again for five years when I found out I missed both Firefly and The West Wing. I missed other good shows like Buffy and Angel, but Firefly and The West Wing rate in my top five best television shows ever. EVER. And I missed them.

So what books am I missing?

So I looked around and saw something that piqued my interest, a little ditty edited by Anne Sowards, who I've gotten to know on Twitter and she's pretty cool. SONG OF THE BEAST by Carol Berg.

Dragons are still the big scaled things that breathe fire, but the premise as to why the are beholden to humans, the origin stories of how dragons affected the world, and their need for the main character. It's a great idea. It's a genius idea! I'm still coming to terms with the ending, but I wouldn't hesitate recommending this book. If you're looking for some good fantasy, give it a try. I'm so glad I picked it up.

Enthusiasm

What what? Two posts in a week? That's crazy! The Mayans were right! Run for your lives!

...wait, never mind, that last post was on Friday, so this is technically a new week. Move along. Nothing to see here.

I used to post much more frequently. Technically I'm supposed to be past my busy time of year and have more time for posting, but my editors turned over content two months late. Don't worry. In educational publishing, that's early. But it leaves me two weeks to do the work for which I should have seven. Huzzah!

I am typing this out, though, because I've been noticing a lot of blog-fading going on without much explanation as to why. I see a lot of apologies when they post, which I was doing as well. After awhile that gets tiring. I get it. You're sorry. But if you can't post five times a week like you used to, then post once a week and announce there is a change. Better that then apologizing every week when you only post once.

[/tangent]

Anyway, I've been posting here less. It has nothing to do with you guys. You're great. I like having you here, and conversing with you in the comments. It's because I didn't make it where I wanted to make it in 2011. I'm getting tired of blogging about writing. We all start there, because that's what we have in common, but so much of the conversation on the industry has turned vitriolic, that I don't feel like participating in that any more.

And really, I wanted to talk about other things, exciting things, new things that you can't get on other blogs. I wanted to talk about my writing. Specifically that I had signed with an agent, that we had gone on submission, that I was going to have a book coming out, and so many of the other things that I deal with on a professional level as a project manager in educational publishing but not as a writer in trade publishing.

This isn't a writing blog. Hell, it's not a blog at all, as I so often say. It's a journal. I want to talk about things that are happening, but right now, the same things are happening that happened last year. I have an agent looking at my work. I'm waiting patiently. I'm writing new things. Washing, Rinse, Repeat. I feel like I'm just blowing hot air until I can deliver on what I say I'm going to do. I am going to sign with an agent. I am going to get a book deal. I am going to accomplish my goals. And when I start another new manuscript, it gets hard to come here and tell you how excited I am.

Incidentally, I'm really excited about my current works in progress. What's Behind the Crooked Door is unlike anything I've written before. Beneath a Sundered Sky is the story I've wanted to write since I was five. That really jazzes a person up. Things are awesome! They could be awesomer [ahem, unnamed agent reading my stuff right now]. I hope eventually they will be awesomest [I'm a winner! Really! Pick me!]. But until then, I'll make do with awesome.

I hope my lack of posting does not reflect poorly on what I have to say.

Transcending Genre

I'm not a huge Neil Gaiman fan. I do not dislike him, but in the scale of fandom that belongs to him, most everyone I know falls into the "I would give him a kidney if he asked for it" category, and I'm not there. Not all his stories resonate with me. And while my wife owns all his books, and I am thus at my liberty to try them all, I tend not to finish most I start.

The exception to this is Neverwhere. I love me some Neverwhere. I love it so much because if I was going to write that story, I would write it pretty much just the same. (That's big praise from me because I write the stories I want to read, thus he's doing all the work for me and I can sit back and relax as a reader unconcerned with being the writer.) I used a rarely used word today to fit into Twitter's 140-character limit, elseways. It reminded me of Neverwas (a good movie, check it out) which sent me on to Neverwhere.

I would love to write a book named Elseways, but I think if I did, it would end up being a lot like Neverwhere. That got me thinking on what kind of story I would write for Elseways. I bounce around within fantasy a lot: traditional, pre-steampunk, post-apocalyptic pulp, sword and sorcery, epic, contemporary. The one I never write on is urban. Urban is not my cup of tea. And too often, people use urban when they really mean contemporary. Urban fantasy deals with worlds within worlds, most often fairies, vampires, and/or werewolves, but regardless, it includes a Venn diagram of a world laying on top of our own that of which the average citizen is unaware.

Neverwhere is Urban Fantasy. But because Urban Fantasy is not my cup of tea, I balked at it and thought to myself, really, isn't it more contemporary? That was an unfounded claim because clearly there is a Venn diagram of worlds going on, which is the requirement I just put forth. So what's the problem? Well, so much urban fantasy is about fairies, vampires, and/or werewolves that something like Neverwhere just seems like a high-quality contemporary fantasy. And I'm really loving contemporary fantasy right now. Thus, I want this book I like to fall into a genre I like. Logic be damned!

I think if I were to ever write an urban fantasy, it would be Elseways. That's a title that could get me over that hump. The real goal wouldn't be to write in a subgenre that isn't tea, but to write a book that isn't Neverwhere. I already associate them and I just came up with the damn title. That's not a very good sign.

That and I don't actually have a story. But I have a title now, so dibs. I call dibs. Go find your own title.

(And happy new year.)

Beware the Gimmicks

Here's how you market your book: You try to build as large a following on Twitter and Blogger as you can while remaining true to yourself. You publish a book. You contact all the people you've become friends with and ask if you can do a guest post on their blog. You post frequently to Twitter about your new book and your guest blogs. Then...the contest! You know someone with "cred." You will leverage that cred to draw people to your blog, exposing them to your new book while they try to use you to get access to this other person.

How do I know this is how you market your book? Because this is how everyone is marketing their book right. Traditionally published or self-published, it doesn't matter. My Twitter feed is awash with hourly posts reminding me to check out one's book/blog/guest post. Multiply this by the number of people I follow (which is small compared to most people) and you can understand how Twitter is becoming less and less fun. It's like that scene in "Demolition Man" where they have a radio station that only plays commercials. I do not go to Twitter just so I can read your commercials all day.

Now, the first answer I always receive is "that's what lists are for," which is technically correct but misses the point. It's not about whether or not I want to read about your self-published opus with the conflicted hero who has to go on a killing spree to find himself. It's that in your effort to reach everyone, you're drowning those you already reached. Overexposure is worse than underexposure, I think. Overexposure turns off people that might have otherwise given you a try, and does so with finality. Underexposure allows for a trickle down later. (And really the goal is to hit the sweet spot where you're exposing yourself without prefixes.)

And then there's the contest. Oh there are so many contests, most of which smack of nothing more than a cheap gimmick. First there are the unethical contests (rate me on Goodreads for a chance to win!). Then there are the hassles (follow my blog for two points and tweet about my contest for one point..!). Then there are the false promises (my agent will read a random person's manuscript--oh wait, she's too busy). There are two simple rules to contests: 1) The participant needs to be the winner not you. 2) The participant needs to actually win something. If people participate in your contest and you can't deliver on your promises, it's not an unfortunate mistake. It's fraud. You defrauded people. Maybe not intentionally, but you established conditions and reneged on your promises. At best that makes you a liar and at worst it makes you a politician.

What does this all boil down to? With the flood gates of self-publishing open, there are a metric shit ton of people peddling their literary wares and most of them are trying the same things to get your attention. Simply shouting louder than everyone else in the room (metaphorically speaking) is not the way to win that contest. It may be hard work, but find some new way to get people's attention or you may find yourself losing the attention of those you've already won. And if you are starting to say, "But I don't have the time..." shut up. This is publishing not play school. If you can't make the time to do anything more than spamming Twitter you need to go find yourself a new hobby. I hear thumb twiddling is fun.

Interesting Dynamic

I watch people. I consider myself an extroverted misanthrope, if that's allowed. I love to talk and joke and laugh, but that's usually when I'm the center of attention. Drop me in the middle of a crowd where I don't know anyone, and I'm not like a real extrovert that goes around introducing himself to everyone. I kind of just shrink and disappear unless someone bridges me into a group where I might contribute in some meaningful way to a conversation. So what that often means is that I watch people. I watch all kinds of people, studying how they act, how consistently the act, and more importantly how they contradict themselves. It's how to build character in a story. Really all life is a story. So why not study its characters?

I saw something the other day that really piqued my interest. I work in an office building in Boston. There are a whole stretch of publishers right in a row, so you get some 10- to 12-floor building filled with editors and project managers and the like. Because we're so close together, all our floors are secured to keep the enemy from infiltrating and steeling our precious books. That means the building has a person in the lobby checking badges. I don't know their names except for Alex, the morning guy. There are plenty of others that rotate in and out during the day. So I can't say who the employee was in the lobby because it was an afternoon while I was leaving, but what I saw really made me want to write it down.

It was bitter cold. We've had a mild season so far, but the tall buildings can sometime create wind tunnels and when a strong, cold wind blows, it can cut like a knife. This sends the homeless looking for some place warm. It may be a winding alley that breaks the wind, it may be a shelter, often it's the subway. I come out of the elevator and pass the front desk and there is a woman dressed very obviously in everything she owned. She had half a mouth of teeth and her skin was so weathered she looked a couple decades older than she probably was. She was talking and laughing with the guy at the front desk.

There's always a moment of pause when encountering a homeless person in the big city to determine what type of homeless person they are. Are they merely destitute? Do they have problems (war vet, etc) that have driven them onto the streets? Are they addicts? Are they bat shit insane? It's really only this last one you worry about. The addicts leave you alone during the day. The worst you usually get is a yelling at. Maybe some spit. The destitute and the damaged will accept your charity but ignore you if you ignore them. But the bat shit crazy people are the dragon in the china shop.

So I pause, waiting to see if homeless lady is getting escorted out, if the cops are on their way, or if all is well. I hear the desk guy laugh and know all is well. Whew. It's always hard dealing with the crazy ones because you want to calm them and help if you can, but the wrong word or gesture may get you attacked. More often you just want them to be quiet until you get to where you're going and you can leave them behind. Ahhh, life in the big city.

In this case, though, everything was copasetic. I listened to their conversation as I crossed the lobby to leave. She was claiming she worked in the building but had forgotten her badge. Wouldn't he be a dear and let her go up and get it from her desk. He laughed, said she had tried that one last time, and she should try a different tactic.

When I stepped outside and got a blast of cold air in the face, I finally realized what he was doing. He wasn't allowed to let her loiter and he obviously couldn't let her go up to the secured floors. But if he was "helping" her, he could let her stay for awhile and stay warm. So she "lost her badge" and he helped her figure out "what to do" and they joked around for awhile while she thawed out and then she went on her way.


That, in itself, I think is cool. But I thought it would be a good twist to the "whodunnit" stories that you see in shows like Castle where the homeless are there only to be barely-functioning witnesses that can't testify on the stand, but can give the police the clue they need to carry on the search. What if you had a higher functioning homeless person that was friends with a doorman. The doorman let her come inside and warm up for awhile. She got warm and didn't cause any trouble. They all laughed, everything was spiffy, and then...THE MURDER! Lots of opportunity for red herrings while the detectives get over their assumptions of homeless people and realize they've been approaching the whole thing from the wrong perspective.

In a ponderance, ideas, journaling, pass it forward, personal life

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Letting Go

So Kristin Nelson had a very important lesson on her blog today. A lot of famous authors have had to learn that lesson as well. Brandon Sanderson and his agent Jashua Blimes have commented on the drawer full of novels he had written and were not good enough for Elantris, his first published novel. And Marie Lu's first sale is a huge one. I actually send my condolences because the pressure for her next novel is going to be a bitch. Good wishes and all the support I can offer that she rises to the challenge. (I think I would be a mess.)

This is a lesson I'm having trouble with but not having trouble with. I have a rule, one new novel per year. Rewriting does NOT count as a new novel. New from scratch, never been finished before, that's new. Between requested revisions and non-requested revisions, I didn't finish my first novel this year until September (PRINCE OF CATS). I honestly don't know if I'll finish my second before the end of December (WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR?). I won't have a completed draft of either before years' end. That's rough.

Here's the catch. I write fantasy and in fantasy, the world is effectively a character. I'm not so much consumed with the stories. They couple I've rewritten have changed to varying degrees. What I'm married to are the settings. The notion of abandoning the settings for new stories is something I haven't been able to do. I love those settings and I want other people to see them too. The problem is, having written a story in them (or a couple, for one world), it's hard to completely divorce what you've written for that setting and start fresh.

So, I excuse the whole thing by saying, as long as I write one new novel a year, it doesn't matter if the rest of my time is spent revising. That may burn me in the future, but for now, it's a middle ground I've found for myself.

What's the Frequency (Kenneth)

My attempt to blog more has been foiled by the arrival of the busy time of year. I know that seems obvious, given I've been busy, but that's been busy with other people's projects. Now I'm busy with my projects and other people's projects at the same time. WOO HOO!

Wait, no, that's not woo hoo. That's D'OH! Similar to woo hoo, only different.

So a quick note about frequency inspired by Nate over at Sometimes the Wheel is on Fire. His new son, The Professor, is like many a baby/toddler. When put in a moving car, he falls right asleep. I have many friends with many babies along with a ridiculous number of nieces and nephews and this has proven true in most cases. Something about a car's vibration and/or the white noise of travel puts a baby to sleep.

I experience something similar. Not that I fall asleep. (My wife is the one that falls asleep, requiring me to always be the driver on family holidays.) My mind focuses. Just before she falls asleep, the missus asks "Are you writing?" because she sees the look on my face and knows I'm working out a story in my brain. I also do the majority of my writing on the commuter rail down into Boston. Something about the vibration and the noise (barring crying babies, crazy people, and obnoxious people) lets me focus on the story and nothing else.

That's awesome, except when the train stops. Today the train broke down (which happens more often than it should). And it occurred to me after we started moving again that I did not write the entire time we were stopped. I checked twitter and fiddled on my phone. I looked down the aisle and out the window. I did everything but write. As soon as we started moving again, boom, started writing again.

Not sure why that is. Someone become a scientist and figure that out. *cough* Livia Blackburne *cough*

No Really, I am thankful

I don't have a lot of regular readers, but those of you that stop in, I really enjoy talking with you (both here and on Twitter). It's been fun, and I look forward to more fun in the future. I hope you'll be there for the ride.

And for all you new people, hiya. Here's our corner. Stay awhile if you like.


Mmmm, sap. But it's too late in the year to make good New Hampshire syrup. What should we do with all this sweet? Balance it out, would be the Hindu custom. (I need to dig up the article, but there's some awesome stuff about how all four flavor types need to balance for a healthy life.)

I've been thinking, lately, I'm kind of scared. I never really got into drugs or heavy drinking, but I had my own vices and really went off the rails for a decade or so. It took a lot of discipline to get my shit together so that I could work a steady job, draw a steady salary, living with a roof over my head, and write a novel from start to finish. But sometimes I worry that the discipline chokes out my voice. Or at least the voice I'm accustomed too (veterans here have seen it when a post just builds up steam and then we just go balls to the wall like the train in Back to the Future 3 after the red log ignites and the whole thing goes over a cliff...which is typically what happens to me as well :). There was a beautiful fury in my writing once, and now it's sharp and precise. It's like a broadsword versus a razor. I always got better reader response from the broadsword, but never finished anything. Ever. I never finished anything more than a few thousand words.

And of course, it took a particular lifestyle to write like that, one I would never want to return to. For as many awesome stories as I have to tell from my twenties, there are a LOT of things I wish I had a second chance on.

So, add this to the new ways a writer can be neurotic about whether or not they have talent. Did I have more talent before? I have I lost my talent?

I don't know. But at least there's pie.

Throw Your Arms In the Air Because You Just Don't Care

I write because I'm a writer. I pursue professional publication because that's been a goal of mine for the past 22 years. It wasn't always my highest priority, but it was never abandoned. And for the past two+ years, it has been my highest priority. I focus on writing not as an eventual, but as a now. I may still be wading at the shallow end compared to long-established best sellers, but I'm not just wishing. I am being.

And you know what? I'm already sick and tired of it.

Publishing is mirroring our current politics so much that I want to hit my head against a wall. Two sides have entrenched themselves in their opinions. Neither can fully represent the nuances of 100%, but both act and speak as if theirs is the only recourse. They waste time and energy deriding the other group and drowning out the measured compromise of the middle ground.

I've had my fill of it in politics. I've had my fill of it in publishing. So here is my declaration to all of you: KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF!

Premise 1: Writing is the art. Publishing is the business.

Premise 2: In business, all parties look out for their own interests first.

Premise 3: Our interest is to make money through our writing. If that is not our interest, we should not be in publishing.

Assertion: We are entitled to pursue whatever avenues will yield us the optimal yield, this taking into account measurable factors such as promotion, distribution, etc.

This means we can self-publish if we want to. This means we can publish with an independent or small press if we want to. This means we can publish with a major publishing house if we want to.

If anyone says differently, that person is full of shit. You do what you need to do to succeed at this business. Let other people do what they need to do to succeed in this business. Plain and fucking simple. The next person that tries to beat me over the head with "[X publishing model] is the debil!" gets kicked in the junk.


This all grew out of a post I originally wrote in September. It's taken me two months to revisit the post because I was just that upset. It's really interfered with other blog posting as well (as you can tell). I wanted to finish this one, but the topic just riles me up so that I needed more space.

So how did that old post begin? Well, with usual Me wit, I was being all snarky about Amazon. I have come around to self-publishing as a valid business model (as noted above), especially when articles like this embody what I believe is the write mindset for self-publishing. But some of the more popular self-publishing proponents out there beat the Amazon drum too often. All they see is 70% royalties and nothing else can compete. I believe this is short-sighted, and I think Amazon is starting to show its hand as to why.

You think that 70% gold mine is the way publishing will be forever? That's not how monopolies work. I agree with you that 15% or 25% royalties is crap (net? Seriously?), but you're fooling yourself if you think you'll get 70% royalties forever. It's a ploy to take over the market. What happens once you take over a market? This is what happens. And/or this happens.

It has nothing to do with the efficacy of trad v. self. It's what happens when one company owns complete marketshare. The difference between 15% and 70% is so large, though, that it drowns out any reasonable conversation. So here's the short of it. NEVER LIMIT YOURSELF TO ONE OPTION.

Now this doesn't seem like a discussion that would get derailed, but in September there was "the blow up." I'm not linking to it and I'm not expounding to it. It involves a company owned by a company owned by a company that also owns the company I work for. To talk about it requires my HR department and I make it a policy never to discuss things that require an HR department, because nothing good comes out of that.

Here's the short of that: SOME PEOPLE SUCK. In any endeavor, you will meet people who are phenomenal. You will meet people who are abysmal, and you will meet the avast amount of people that fall in the middle. They don't have curly mustaches that they twist around their fingers. They don't want to tie you to train tracks. But sometimes you meet someone who does, and fuck that guy. No one likes that guy. Be wary of that guy in all your dealings because you may or may not run into him.

Because that guy exists does not mean the entire industry is corrupt any more than it means you should not self-publish because it adds to Amazon's marketshare. These are factors in the grand spreadsheet of business. You need to tally it all up and make the decisions that are best for you.

So now that I've gotten my own licks in on that dead horse, let us discuss lighter matters, like cabbages and kings.

Also? I like pie.

Bringing KITT Back

First let me apologize for my absence. I've been fiddling with more personal, non-writing specific posts. That was fine and all, but there was one topic I've been trying to tackle for awhile that is difficult because it involves another company owned by the company that owns mine. In other words, there's a lot I'm not allowed to say, even if it was in support of the company. At least, a lot I'm not allowed to say without getting permission, and I don't want to go through that hassle. Job is over there. Joe the writer is over here. And I want to keep those two separate. I've been burned too many times in the past for not doing so.

And then there was the biggun. I was one of the three million people that lost power. Now I've lost power before, but I've always been fortunate in that it comes on a few hours later. I think the longest I've ever gone without power (as a result of a calamity and not the electric company turning it off or not having a home to power) was five hours. Not this time! Three and a half days. And that's still not as bad as some! But you learn a lot about how your house is heated when there is none. We eventually had to flee to a motel as the heat fell below 40 degrees in our house. We were lucky that we got a room in town, one of two that required we wait in the motel lobby for an hour waiting for reservations to be cancelled.



So then power came back and I had a lot of work to catch up on. Still, I had an idea today I'd like to share. While it's still not the post I've been brainstorming on for awhile, I think a lot of you might find it recognizable.

Those of you 30 or older, at least. The youngins might only remember the reboot from a couple years ago. And if you remember it, I apologize. It was quite awful. I would rate it worse than the reboot of Bionic Woman, which was sadly awful as well. What am I talking about? Knight Rider.

It's the show that made David Hasselhoff famous before Baywatch. It aired at a time when Saturday morning still showed cartoons (not Power Rangers or VR Troopers or any of that offal, I'm talking about real cartoons). Saturday afternoons were the pantheon of young boy television. A-Team, Incredible Hulk, Airwolf, Knight Rider, Battlestar Galactica (original). Dear lord, I weep just thinking about its greatness (I also weep when I watch the pilot of Airwolf and discover just how bad that show was).

I'm also old enough that I got the tail end of the greats from the previous decade. That means the Six Million Dollar Man and the original Bionic Woman. Plus all their made-for-TV movies! SO. GOOD!

I was excited to see the reboot of Bionic Woman and sad to see they missed the mark so badly. I gave Knight Rider a chance. I had given Knight Rider 2000 a chance, so why not this? I had less confidence that they could do it right because it's such a niche story that the original series covered a lot of bases. And as expected, it was a crapper. Even with Val Kilmer as KITT. Like so much TV, they tried to be what the other show wasn't, even though the other show worked for its time. Now you had a car that could do everything, a hot shot idiot driver, and an ex-flame with an axe to grind as the scientists daughter.

These things are expected. There are so many political decisions that go into TV casting now, that you can't have an all-guy cast except for the chicks in bikinis like you could in the '80s. That's a good thing. But it's approached with specific biases (e.g. your lead still needs to be a white male) that it makes casting pretty predictable.

Today, for some reason I cannot imagine, pieces for the show fell into place. The reboot had a few right ideas in that it needed a younger cast. Not the middle-aged guy talking to the old guy except when he was talking to his car. It needs some women who are competent. And it needs a talking car. It doesn't need an "on the run from the law" when in the first episode you introduce a car that can do everything. There is no cop in the country that's going to catch your car, so why are we watching?

So here's what we do. Make the lead Idris Elba or Taye Diggs. Let's break that "all leads must be white" mold right now. We know it's not true and these two are recognizable enough that it won't be a big stretch for the less liberal of America to sign onto the concept.

Knight Industries returns as a military research and design company, run by an old white guy. We'll name him Michael Knight. It never made sense that Knight Industries was run by Devon Miles and Michael Knight was just an employee. Let's fix that with a little throw-back to the old series. It's a pity Edward Mulhare couldn't fill that role because that would have been awesome. RIP, sir. This new character is the CEO and head of research, the guy that started it all. And while the company has grown well beyond that scope (we'll see later), Dr. Knight is all about military research that saves lives.

Specifically, he's working on an adaptive AI program to be installed in military Humveess to reduce the amount of casualties by IEDs and other impediments. They are in the final testing phase before the computer system goes operational. His team?

Captain Taye Diggs Idris Elba, United States Army, detached to Knight Industries to serve as military liaison, field expert, and the best damn driver in the military.

White chick engineer. Former military. She doesn't mind getting greasy and she's great with machines. Mix Zoe with Kaylee from Firefly and you're looking good here.

Indian nerd. Let's get rid of the typical gangly guy with the thick nerds or the FOB import. Have an Indian guy great in electronics without the accent that doesn't look like he was beat up all his life. He just likes to get his nerd on. (The first time you see KITT's red light going back and forth, I'd love to see the computer say "By your command." It makes me squee with glee.)

Chinese AI expert. He's your mole. Oh, that's right. We're throwing some Scarecrow and Mrs. King in to this thing. We're well ahead of China on adaptive AI, and they send in a ringer to take what we have and eliminate the team. Make it look like an accident. The Humvee explodes, but Taye Elba saves the primaries of the team (except for Michael Knight and the red shirt engineers who don't get names).

This is all part of a grander espionage that the team must foil because there's not time for anyone else to do so! But in so doing, they alert the Chinese spy they're still alive and still have the technology. They install the AI into Captain Taye Elba's own sports car and use it to save the day. Most of its systems are off-line because it was built to be in a custom-made Humvee. It can't go invisible or any of that stupid shit.

Now Michael Knight's daughter shows up. She runs Knight Industries clandestine unit, farming out equipment and computer resources to the CIA and such. The entire team has been declared dead and there's an espionage war that America can't openly fight. Do they want to wave the red, white, and blue while using awesome gadgets and kicking some ass? Why yes they do.

Oh but wait, their families have been told they're dead. Captain Taye Elba was privy to some super heavy top secret shit. If ever he disappeared or was killed, his family would be relocated with new identities. He has a wife! He has a son and a daughter! And now they're gone. He never got to tell them he was okay. He must find them. But Young Knight chick won't let him. It's for their own safety. And KITT is still an infant AI and follows its own protocols, doing what it must to keep Taye Elba away from his family. Oh the angst! Who can he trust? Who are his friends? And what other dangers are there out there aside from the Chinese! A resurgent Russia, a corrupt military industrial complex, and a boss who never seems on the level.

Dun. Dun. DUUUUUNNNNNNN!!!!

Okay, Hollywood. Get on that. That's a show I would watch as long as you don't make it suck.

(How not to make it suck. Have them working to get KITT operational through the climax, but they can't get it working in time and the humans carry the load on their own. At the end of the pilot, THEN have KITT finally go online. Having a car that can do anything basically means you're filming 41 minutes of car chases which is Nascar without the beer.)

Keith Mars on Flashpoint

Have you seen Veronica Mars? Let's assume you have. If you haven't, go watch it so my assumption will be correct. You can thank me later.

Okay, now that we're all up to speed, who is one of the best characters on the show? Keith, the dad, played by Enrico Colantoni. If I could rent a father, I would rent Keith Mars. He's that awesome.

Well, Veronica Mars ended, but Enrico Colantoni is an actor, so he went on to other things. (You also saw him as Mathesar, the head of the Thermians in Galaxy Quest--but that was before VM.) You may have seen him in Flashpoint.

You probably didn't though, not a lot of people saw it. It was a summer-released show to see if it would take in the regular CBS fall schedule. Premise? Toronto, Ontario, Quebec SWAT team is trained in negotiating tactics to attempt to settle volatile situations without unnecessary body count. Redubbed the SRU, they get to be all empathetic and polite while reserving the option to shoot you in the head.

I gave the show a try because it's Keith Mars and Keith Mars deserves a shot. Unfortunately, it wasn't that good a show. I stalled out by the third or fourth episode and that was that. It went for three seasons and got canned.

Well recently, we got our basement repaired and set the TV back up. I was looking for something to watch and was in the mood for some Enrico Colantoni. I decided to skip the first season and see if season 2 got any better. Sometimes shows do that.

Oh how I wish I hadn't stopped watching! About episode 7 or 8 of the first season, the show REALLY found its groove. My wife and I just watched the entire second season in the span of a couple weeks (and I watched half the first season as well).

Here's the standard breakdown of the show: start with out-of-context climax then flash back to a few hours before. Introduce situation, respond, try different methods, resolve the situation, make you cry.

That last part happens enough that it is part of the standard show outline. My wife says the show could feature a goat in a pudding factory and it would still make you cry. She is not wrong about this.

The thing is, it breaks a lot of stereotypes in the procedural drama realm. The big tough guy doesn't have to be closed off emotionally. The sniper doesn't have to want to kill everyone and everything. Shooting the bad guy isn't always the best solution (rarely is), and just become someone is a bad guy doesn't mean the cops will look the other way while a victimized citizen introduces him to Old West justice.

We like to say it's because they're Canadian, but really I think it's just snappy writing. I love taking an established genre and turning it on its ear without clubbing it over the head with a baseball bat. It's good to see characters portrayed as human and the hardships they endure having to be in a job where their decisions can cost people's lives. (Lewis! *tear*) I wish it had hit its stride sooner. I would have watched it while it was on rather than a few years later when it was too late to give it my support.

Anyway, if you have Netflix, it's available for streaming.

Real-Life Hobbit

When I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. "Attention K-Mart shoppers" was a frequent phrase uttered over the PA system, to give you a frame of reference. (Younger readers, K-Mart is like Wal-Mart before Wal-Mart was Wal-Mart.) Unfortunately, the quality of goods to be obtained there was not always the best. Do you know what foot stones are? Where some really shitty shoes sometime (like the kind you'd buy at K-Mart) and the sharp pains you feel beneath the soles of your feet are foot stones. That's what I got from a $10 pair of shoes from K-Mart.

My mother's response when I told her I couldn't walk any more and needed new shoes? Let's go back to K-Mart and get a new pair. Yeah, no. Let's go get some real shoes. Unfortunately real shoes back then cost pretty similar to what real shoes cost now. A pair of shoes for a ten year old would cost you $40 on the affordable side. And of course, this is the age of Air Jordans where everyone else was wearing $120 shoes. But we were poor and $40 usually got me yelled at plenty, thanks.

One year the search for shoes proved so difficult that I almost could not find any that we could afford. This meant that I spent a good portion of my time barefoot. That tradition continues today. The first thing I do when I get home is take off my shoes and socks. I don't like wearing them. They smother my feet and trap me in and really, what do I need shoes for? I'm not walking over hot coals or jagged rocks.

My wife likes to call me her hobbit, and there may be some truth to that. At work, me being in my own cube with high walls, if I'm really focused on an important project and I don't want any distractions, I'll take off my shoes. I leave my socks on because I'm at work and all, but if I could...oh, I would.

And in case you're curious, I'm at work on my lunch hour right now and I am not wearing my shoes. Wheeeeeeeeee!

Naming Characters

Suzanne Johnson posted today on Roni Loren's writing blog, Fiction Groupie¹.

Suzanne is discussing picking names for your characters. This is a topic relevant to EVERYONE and a particular challenge to fantasy authors who so often create cultures from the ground up and can't name their protagonist Joe despite how awesome people named Joe are.

*ahem*

Despite tradition, I am not writing this to disagree with Suzanne. I agree with most everything she says². No, I am writing this because I DO agree with (most of) her and there is a process I use for naming conventions that I thought I would share. I also have a warning, and we're going to start with that first.

We're in a current Live imitating Art imitating Life loop. We're moving away from the more classic Judeo-Christian names. Unfortunately the rediscovery of some Old World classics that were smothered by Biblical names has reintroduced some names that were lame even back then. So if you're naming your daughter Madison, KNOCK IT OFF! It means "Son of Maud" so think on that a little before you try to preemptively make your kid cool with an uncommon name.

Okay, now to the positivity. Names are a big deal. They can really draw a reader into your character, establish him/her in the same was as pages of prose, and add a degree of atmosphere to your setting. This last bit is what I find most important about names. They establish setting. I don't just pick names that sound cool. I pick names that communicate culture. You won't find a hodgepodge of names in my books, cherry picked from any resource that I find supder-kewl-dude-omg unless the country is a melting pot, a la the US. Instead, I will choose a regional theme and apply it to the entire setting. I find Behind the Name³ incredibly helpful in this regard.

So for example, I chose Scandinavia to be the cultural influence for the kingdom of Reliarach (in my novel, THE TRIAD SOCIETY and its sequels). Most names come from Sweden, but I'll look in Norway, Finland, and Denmark too. So lower class people and a number of places I took from Germany, and for the rural folks that migrated to the city looking for work, I used Polish and Russian names. Not casting aspersions on the Polish or Russian readers out there, just wanted something similar but clearly distinct to my originating Swedish names.

I also like using those names because they're foreign to US readers to make them sound fantastical, but still rooted in something recognizable so they don't struggled to identify them. Fantasy authors frequently violate this rule. They make names so complex and unpronounceable that the first thing the reader does is come up with a nickname. They read the first one or two syllables and skip the rest. You're wasting your time and theirs making the super big Bobomastidonaramanustra. They call him Bob from there on out.

So go! Be more consistent in your naming conventions. Remember, that you lay the first blocks of your setting with the name you pick.

And stop trying to make your kids cool with their names. You don't have to name them all Joe, but it works for boys and girls and peopled named Joe are awesome. Remember that.


¹ If you are blogging and include a ton of links like I just did, be sure to add a "target" to your html code. A target dictates where a link opens. In this case we want links to open in a new tab/page so that the user can continue to read our blog without having to navigate back and forth. To accomplish this, we do the following: [a href="URL address" target="_blank">URL name[/a]. Replace [ ] with < > and you're good to go.

² Despite its numerous Hs, Cthulhu is not hard to pronounce. It's also a dangerous point to make as taking such an iconic figure from fantasy/horror will bait the nerds to argue your nominal point rather than focusing on the larger point being made. And come on, Cthulhu? Really? Out of all the fantasy names out there, that's the one you pick as being hard to pronounce?

³ While I rarely use it, there's also a Behind the Name for surnames!