Don't Get Sloppy

I was in Fort Lauderdale last weekend, officiating Beach Brawl 2014 (and yes, I'll write a post explaining roller derby, given the number of times it's been requested), and I left my Flash drive in the business center of the hotel. I don't really use it anymore. Once upon a time, Dropbox wasn't as useful as it is now, and you couldn't sync across multiple desktops with simple internet access. You had to go to a web location, upload stuff, and blah blah. It was the same as a Flash drive except less convenient.

So back in the day, I kept EVERYTHING on that Flash drive. And while it doesn't include the most recent draft of my most recent novel, it has everything as of the completion of FAMILY JEWELS. Why? Because Dropbox could get hacked. Accidents happen. It's always good to have a backup of your backups (and I update my external hard drive even less frequently than I do my Flash drive).

This all sounds like sage advice, so what makes this post-worthy? Well, when I first started saving things on my Flash drive, there was no such thing as Kindle Direct Publishing. There was no black market of plagiarized novels self-published to reap what few sales they can from the ill-gotten work of others. Now, if I lose my Flash drive, EVERYTHING on that drive (which is EVERYTHING) could be posted to KDP by a nefarious neerdowell, tarnishing my reputation and stealing my work. While none of those novels have been published, some of them have strong prospects for future revision (Triad Society anyone?). Those prospects are dashed if someone steals them off a lost Flash drive and throws them up on the internet in their current form.

This is NOT to tell you to ditch the Flash drive, but it IS to suggest that you lock any folder that contains your writing. Sure it adds a step for when you want to access it, but adding password encryption means that if you leave your Flash drive in a business center, you don't have to panic and wait to see your first novel from five years ago suddenly shitting all over KDP.

Lesson learned. :)

Where Did All My Free Time Go?

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. Mea culpa. I tore a tendon in my shoulder and the recuperation (ongoing) has really thrown my routines for a loop. I've been working from home a lot or not working and going to physical therapy a lot. It may have been a good habit to write on the train every day, but once I stopped taking the train, writing became a lot harder. I also waited longer before starting a second draft. It was helpful, but dear lord I finished the first draft at the end of February and here it is back end of April and I'm not done with the second draft yet. What the hell? So lazy! :)

With the shoulder, I'm not allowed to roller skate. The risk of a fall may move me from physical therapy to surgery, and that's not something I want to risk because I watched a YouTube video of what they do in the surgery and hell no I don't want them perforating my collarbone so they can tie my tendon in place. Screw that! The silver lining in that situation is that I had to come to terms that this most recent attempt to start a men's roller derby team in southern New Hampshire has flopped. For that reason, I volunteered to officiate for the very successful women's roller derby league. Come out to a match! I'll be the guy in a pink shirt they announce as Charles Dickins.

Board games are really big in the Northeast, I've mentioned before, and I have a group that meets every week to play. But that was my big group activity. Usually I worked, I wrote, and I spent time with my wife. Now that I've added roller derby to the mix, my time has evaporated. It's amazing how popular the sport is and how much people need help. If you're at all interested in seeing what the modern derby is like, head to the Googles. It's a safe bet something is going on near you.

Now that I'm going back into work more frequently, I'm writing again, and the second draft is coming along. The first few chapters were a slog, but I've whipped them into shape and the next chapters have gone much faster. I'll give them another pass before sending them out to beta readers. Gonna get this thing to its fighting weight.

Because I'm commuting, that means I'm on the subway, which is where I traditionally read. I broke from my comfortable genres (fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, or biography) and went with literary fiction, something I never read because BORING! I know I'm often told I write literary fantasy (another way of saying, your work is slow moving and focuses too much on character, where are all the explosions?), but I don't write literary literary because I don't want to focus on language and emotions and god aren't I see emo, tear. Or so was my perception of literary. But then I read Jamie Ford's HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET and holy shit, people, you have to read this book. It has cemented itself as a contender for my favorite non-fantasy/sf book of all time. I kept gushing on Twitter because it was just SO good. Even when it slowed down, I didn't stop reading, I just yelled GODDAMMIT FORD, WHEN DO THEY KISS? at my nook and kept on reading. If you're looking for something new to read, you HAVE to read this one. Have to. That's an order.

And once you're done with that one, keep an eye out for Jason Hough's debut sf THE DARWIN ELEVATOR. It comes out in July (I already pre-ordered), and I was lucky enough to get an eARC, which I'm reading right now. I'll offer my thoughts at greater length once I'm done.

For now, go read HOTEL and/or play roller derby. You'll thank me later.

That Was a Little Terrifying

When I get up in the morning, I write. When I get to work, I spend all day in a cubicle on a computer. When I head home, I write. When I get home, I am often on a computer. I live the classic American sedentary lifestyle. I type 99 words per minutes according to quick brown foxes that jump over lazy dogs. Or at least I did until this past week.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is probably something most writers will deal with at some point or another and at varying degrees. For me it meant that holding the Chinese take-out bag sucked because pinching hurts. Or it meant doing hand stretches because of the dull ache in my hand at the end of the day. More recently it meant stalling for a few minutes at skate practice because I couldn't actually tie my laces. And then a few days ago it finally struck home. It meant I couldn't write, or at least I couldn't use the index finger on my right hand. Not that the index finger is an important digit when used on a QWERTY keyboard.

My word count dropped. My typos skyrocketed, and by the end of the day, I gave up writing entirely. Same went for Friday. My word count was zero. Zero word-count days are sad days. They're the days where the sun remains trapped behind clouds and everything looks gray and desolate. It was a little more terrifying than I let on, too. A couple tweets about it, just to share and maybe gather support, but no hands above my head, run in circles screaming. More just a "What have you done? Why didn't you fix this sooner? You've just ruined your entire life." silent admonition.

Clearly I'm typing today, so something's changed. My wife is a vocal proponent of chiropractics. I am not, having known a few that have made ridiculous claims as to the snake oil they could sell me. Also being forced to see one as a child so we could throw money at not fixing the problem. (A chiropractor found my dad's cancer--it was that far advanced--and my mother got it in her head that they could then cure everything, which they can't.) In this case, however, research shows that manipulation of the hands can actually alleviate carpal tunnel symptoms similar to more direct action applied by medical doctors. I looked all this up, and read about it on reputable sources.

It cost me more than I wanted to pay (to which I am still annoyed), I will have to go back repeatedly over the next month and spend even more money (to which I am annoyed but slightly less because that was expected), BUT I can type again. I had been waking up in pain every morning, but today I woke up just fine and here I am cruising along. I even wrote yesterday and hope to do so again if I can steal some time for myself.

So take care of yourselves people. Don't wait until it's too late. I don't know about you, but I think I would sound like an idiot trying to write with Dragon voice recognition software (and it would make writing on the train particularly awkward).

Inspiration Strikes Like LIghtning

It's not a good idea to wait on inspiration, but when it strikes, you grab that shit and hold on. It can be a winning lottery ticket, and if you tell it to wait until later, you might never get to scratch off those numbers and hit the big score.

/simile

I was leaving work late today, as I have done for weeks now. It's the busier time of year, made busier because I'm trying to get everything done so my holidays can be holidayicious. AND I had skate practice tonight, for which I was running late. As I hustle to the elevator, I hit the button, the down arrow lights up, I hear a ding, and...

...nothing. The doors don't open. Another door behind me opens. I look. That arrow is lit up too and there's a person inside. I watch the opposite elevator the entire time. I step in, watch, the doors close, I watch to the last. The light was on, but the doors never opened. How strange! Especially since I just listened to a piece on NPR's Marketplace about the science of elevators. I've been paying attention, and that was certainly weird.

Wouldn't it have been horrible if I had gotten on that elevator and then it broke down and then I missed skate practice entirely rather than just showing up late.

What if... what if... what if...

So many possibilities come to mind, and then I hear the first lyrical construction of what becomes the first few lines below. After I finish my current rewrite, I have two novels on deck. One is a larger fantasy I've tried to write twice before. The other is a science fiction who-dunnit with the working title of FAMILY JEWELS. I may have done a wind sprint for that one previously. I dabbled on it because I couldn't get it out of my mind. And I admit, I was unimpressed with the wind sprint. This, however, these few paragraphs capture the tone and attitude I want for the story.

BAM! Inspiration to the face! Hop past the break (if you see a break) to read the first few paragraphs. I'll let this simmer on the back burner for when I write the full thing. This may move it up to the next-to-bat position even though I've been world building on 7TH SACRIFICE a lot lately. We'll see when we get there. For now I still have a lot more to do with BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE.


Chapter 1: Benedict Quick Hated Running

There is always a singular instant, a domino moment, when What Is deviates from What Should Be and becomes What If. All of a person's nicely ordered and freely chosen decisions become the victims of causality, falling one after the other. For Benedict Quick, lead detective at Quick and Easy Investigations, that moment occurred on Saturday the 15th of April at 0731. He stood on the fifth floor of the Bellanton Building, waiting for the uppevator to turn into a downevator, but when the up-arrow light turned off and the down-arrow light turned on, the doors did not open.

Another down-arrow light turned on, and a synthesized bell dinged as the doors to a second downevator opened behind him. Ben stepped into the metal box, an old-style pulley/engine conveyance that worked against gravity in both directions to move a person to differing floors while keeping their feet on a solid plane.
“Backward fucking planet,” Ben grumbled for the billionth time, punching a plastic circle marked “G” that lit up after he touched it.

That kind of antique novelty was common on planet Wozniak, the odd and eccentric, the vogue and the retro. Most members of the Galactic Cooperative of Planets used anti-graviton movement tubes, uppevators, downevators, leftevators, rightevators, and so on. These old style boxes only moved up and down and had a tendency to get stuck, even back when they were the only method of transport from the first to the fiftieth floor.

The first downevator's light remained on, but its doors never opened. It sat there, waiting for someone to call for service, while Ben made his way to the ground floor. Ben Should Have gotten on that first downevator. It Should Have gotten stuck between the fifth and the fourth floors with him inside. Then he wouldn't have reached the lobby when he did. He wouldn't have spotted Xio Xiolin--a white-collar biometics counterfeiter with a bounty on his head--walking toward the exit. Xiolin wouldn't have made eye contact. Xiolin wouldn't have run. And Ben wouldn't have had to chase him.

Benedict Quick hated running.

Run for Your Lives!

An exciting thing happened to me in September. An agent read a full manuscript of mine and offered me a recommendation. I know it's not as cool as offering me representation, but a recommendation is pretty awesome in itself. "Send it to X and Y."

Well hell yes I will! Especially since both X and Y are on my short list of agents I would like to work with. What an awesome opportunity!

The thing is, both X and Y are at the same agency. Now some agencies specifically say "do not query multiple agents" but this isn't one of them. HOWEVER, I was still nervous of querying them both simultaneously. Some asshats out there will use in their query "so and so said I should email you" when so and so absolutely did not do that. They assume agents are enemies and don't talk to each other. Publishing is small folks and agents absolutely talk to each other. If you lie, you will get caught.

So I didn't want to appear to be one of those people by querying two agents at the same agency that I was contacting them on a recommendation even though it's absolutely true. I weighed the merits of both and chose which to send to first. And now I'm waiting. It's hard to wait for a response to queries. Harder still when you have a recommendation that you're hoping will help your already awesome manuscript (of course) rise to the top of the slush pile. Harder to the umpeenth degree when some agencies (a la Nelson Literary Agency) frequently send responses in two weeks or less. I've had agents respond to queries six months after I originally sent them. One time, I finished a manuscript and then received a rejection for the manuscript I had written BEFORE that one. There is not a set schedule for this kind of stuff.

So here I am waiting and it dawns on me. Shit, NaNoWriMo is here! With NaNoWriMo comes the SUPER-SLUSH! That period at the end of November through the middle of January where hopeful participants think their 50,000-word quantity-over-quality block of text is the next Harry Potter. I've made the mistake of querying during the super-slush. If you are serious about your career, just skip this time period. It's a billion times harder to get noticed. There are holidays and there is a ton of shit coming in.

So I am going to query second agent now so I don't get lumped in with the pending onslaught of 50k novels. If you're working on your query right now, I recommend you get that thing polished and out the door.

A Whole Different World

Being a digital generation, it's easy to get trapped in the notion that who people are online is who they are in real life. And not to say that they're liars or phonies, but when we're on Twitter or Blogger or Facebook, we only see a fraction of that person. I never "market" myself, meaning I always write/speak the way I would if you met me in real life. Joseph L. Selby the internet person is the same as Joseph L. Selby the real-life person. BUT, I don't tweet my trash talk during board games. I don't Facebook my tears while I watched Brave. So, yeah, more to me than these words. More to you too, I should hope. Otherwise you need to close your computer and go outside.

I had the opportunity to speak to someone yesterday, an agent that very successfully uses social media to her advantage (no, it wasn't "the" talk, don't get excited). I thought I had a pretty good handle on who this person was, what our dynamic would be like if we worked together, etc. We've been interacting for some time now, right? You learn things about people and that allows you to inform decisions. I do it. You do it. They do it.

BUT HOLY HELL! That phone call was a thousand times more awesome than any conversation on Twitter or Facebook. That was some professional-level awesomeness that just blew me away. So a lesson I learned, Social Media is only a glimpse. And while sometimes a glimpse is enough (I still won't query the agent that uses her Twitter to make fun of how people are dressed), most times remember that there's a lot more to that person than what you're seeing. Wait for the phone call before making up your mind.

If your call was anything like mine, they might just end up blowing your mind.

The Original Tubes

Sometimes it feels like I watch a lot of TV. I grew up watching a LOT of television. I was a living TV Guide. But I got tired of it and stopped watching for years. We don't have cable in my house. We stream what we want to watch. Castle, Legend of Korra, Psych, White Collar. Mostly I watch a lot of reruns of my favorite shows. Netflix doesn't have as many shows (that I like) that it did a couple years ago, but their "NEW EPISODES" tag is a huge help. I found out yesterday that there are new episodes of Flashpoint. So let me tell you about the new hotness and the old hotness that's going on right now on the boob toob (what came before the intertoobs).

Have you heard of Avatar: The Last Airbender? No, not the shitty live-action M. Night crapfest, but the animated show that it was based on. It was on Nickelodeon and is an amazing, AMAZING show. Especially season 2. It's all on Netflix, so you should watch it. If you're not blown away by "Stories of Bah Sing Sei" then you have no heart! Anyway, the sequel (next chapter?) to the show, The Legend of Korra is airing right now and Nickelodeon's website right now. It is AMAZING! It is just similar enough and just different enough to be the perfect next chapter. And it's got a style of animation that I really enjoy. (seen Triples of Belleville?) Oh and the music! The music is one of the best parts! If I wrote fanfiction, I would love to write in this world. The bending "magic" system is expertly crafted. This is a show great for adults and kids.

So that's the new hotness. The old hotness (not old and busted) is Flashpoint. Unlike the two above, it's okay if you haven't heard of this one. It was a summer debut on CBS that limped along for a few seasons. BUT it stars Keith Mars. Obviously the actor's name isn't Keith Mars, but if you watched the show Veronica Mars (which used to be on Netflix but is no longer), you know Enrico Colantoni played one of the most awesome dads ever (he was also the lead alien in GALAXY QUEST). This is his new show, a cop drama set in Canada where the SWAT team is trained in negotiation tactics so they don't just run around and kill people like how we do it in the states. It started weak, so I never gave it much of a chance. I was really ill and needed something to fill the time and gave this a second chance and about episode 7 of the first season, the writing finally finds its footing. The rest of season 1 and all of season 2 are amazing! You'll cry after every episode. EVERY EPISODE! Season 3 is kind of weak, but it's last half-season, season 4, found the magic again.

BUT WAIT! Netflix threw up a "new episodes" tag and sure enough, there's the rest of season 4! Turns out it was picked up by a cable network to finish season 4 and create a season 5. Woo hoo! Keith Mars to the rescue!

(You won't meat him until season 4, but Raf is my favorite character.)

What do you like to watch?

Avengers Sevenfold

Like most geeks, I saw The Avengers opening weekend. Like many geeks, I saw it more than once. Yes, it was that good. I did not know if it was going to be good. I was hesitantly pessimistic, but after 99% glowing reviews from people I know (some of whom I actually trust), I gave it a try.

Pessimistic, I say? But how? It's superheroes. It's Joss Whedon! It's Marvel!

Exactly. Marvel has a good way of ignoring professionals who know movies and know how to make movies to do what they think the audience wants. Need examples from this decade (ignoring older disasters that are easy picking)? I give you Spider-Man 3 and Iron Man 2. Both had so much potential and both were wasted by Marvel demanding the directors do things their way, which proved not to be a very good way.

But Whedon is at the helm! This time will be different! Okay, A) the fact that he didn't leave/get fired from the project means he's playing nice, so don't think Marvel didn't have some say in the process (the alien invasion? all their doing). Moreover, is Joss as deserving of praise as we give him? I love his properties (especially Firefly), but they push the super-powered teen girl repeatedly. Can he do something like the Avengers without turning the Black Widow into Buffy?

Well, turns out, he can. Now, if you don't like Joss Whedon as a writer or filmmaker, then you won't like this movie. The dialogue is very clearly his. Yes, Stark, Cap, Banner, and Thor all have their own voices, but they are also expert witty banterers in that way Whedon excels at. I don't mind it. Some people do. It's a matter of preference.

The voice is what makes the movie worth watching, though. If you want to watch the big fightemup beatemup battle against the two-dimensional alien invaders, go watch a Transformers. If you want to watch what is perhaps the best rendition of Bruce Banner, then you have to go see Mark Ruffalo (who took my favorite character and made him the best he's ever been--even better than Bill Bixby! I'll go there). You have an ensemble cast of super-heroes that have no reason for being together that need to be together. It's a daunting task that had every reason to fail. It's master writing that made it even passable and Whedon made it awesome.

I never fully drank his kool-aid (I don't think Firefly would have been the amazing show it was without Tim Minear), but this movie really won me over to just how talented he is. I hope I can excel in my own field in a similar fashion.