More Music!

For my old job I used to travel to Europe. Sitting in a bar in Amsterdam, I often heard a style of electronica that really spoke to me. It was a popular house music there that everyone seemed to know, but no one would explain to a silly American. It was unlike anything I heard back in the states. Well, years later with the rise to popularity of such performers as Skrillex, I finally know A) what it's called; and B) how to find it.

So what I was hearing way back when was Dubstep. Now that it's popular, people love to make fun of it because that's what people on the internet do. Let this be a lesson for when you put anything you create out there. Some jackass will make fun of you because that's what jackasses do. Regardless, now that I've found the name of the genre, YouTube has granted me plenty of opportunities to listen.

I bring this up because I don't listen to music while I write. BUT some music gets me so pumped up that I want to write. Such a song is Nefarioiusa by Skream. Check it out:



I've listened to that one three times in a row now. Work? Who wants to work. That can wait until tomorrow. Now it is time I create!!!

Slingshots

As weapons go, I did not have many growing up. I wasn't allowed toy guns or squirt guns because my mom was certain I was going to go around squirting my neighbors or pretending to shoot my neighbors. All that meant was I borrowed my neighbors squirt guns and squirted my neighbors that way. It's okay, my neighbors were squirting me back.

A weapon I was allowed to have (because some strange association to Huckleberry Finn, I guess) was a slingshot and let me tell you, I have always excelled with slingshots. Probably because I always had an affinity at math, and slingshots are all about physics. The problem is that a slingshot isn't really something that strikes fear in the hearts of villains, so giving it to your hero as a weapon isn't that cool. Unless he has explosive ammunition or something and then it becomes more about the ammunition than it does the slingshot.

OR SO I THOUGHT!

I am going to show this to you, but I'm calling dibs right now. None of you are allowed to use this. It's just too cool for me to keep secret. Check out the slingshot this guy created to fight zombies. I never thought about the importance of counter-balance. The things you could do with a stone at a high enough velocity. Holy crap.



And what's even more awesome? This isn't an isolated video. That guy has a whole channel of slingshot videos. Woo hoo!

Middle Grade vs. Young Adult

A combination of bad advice and bad writing as a result of that advice has kind of got me stuck on PRINCE OF CATS. I have two other projects I'm working on right now, but in a few months, I'll be back to it, and I'll have to fix it, which is a daunting prospect.

An agent who is always full of good advice is Kristen Nelson, and she touched on the subject in her new Friday video blog series. Check it out:


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.

Customized Google

Once upon a time in the early days of the intertubes, like last year, you and I could Google the same phrase and get the same results. As we continue down the path of Minority Report where every advertisement ever is customized for our interests and needs of that moment, Google is not so simple a tool as it once was. You see, based on your history and your interests and various brainwaves in specific key areas of your brain, Google can predict what sites would be of most interest to you based on your search parameters.

Humor aside, Google the company has modified its search algorithm so that Google the search engine takes into account various information it has collected about you and customizes your search results to best provide you the results that you would most likely want based on your search parameters and personal tastes.

I don't mind this so much. I mean, yes, it's one more layer away from our privacy onions, but it's not any more intrusive than Facebook and doesn't require me to go into my privacy settings to uncheck boxes that clearly cross a line every four months.

Where this really takes away the fun for me is looking at my analytics here on the website/blog. One of the fields you review is search terms that people used to arrive at your site.

  1. what is being factual?
  2. "moss troll problem"1
  3. henchman street history, boston, ma
  4. hobo writing2
  5. jennifer hillier creep3
  6. jlselby.blogspot.com
  7. josephlselby.com4
  8. sarah megibow rejection partial

I was particularly interested in where I showed up in the Sarah Megibow rejection list (her name is Sara Megibow by the way, without the H). Searching through the first ten pages, I could not find a result that came to my website. Really, if something isn't in the first ten pages, it's not worth finding. SO, this leads us to one of two possible conclusions:

Option 1) My search is customized differently than that person. I'll never know just where I appeared in their search results.

Option 2) That person looked farther than ten pages, in which case, dude, you need to chill. Yeah, Sara rejects partials, including mine and if you went past ten pages, obviously yours as well. Be happy she requested a partial. Plenty of people got passed. Look at the silver lining. And unless you pull out the dick response, she'll be more than receptive to your next query. (She was challening me to submit my next manuscript the NEXT DAY after she passed on my partial. And I picked up that throne gauntlet with alacrity. If this is a duel, it's one I'm going to win. But I'm going to do it with class and manners. So don't be a dick, crazy person.)

Option 35) Someone was trying to find my blog post the other day and thought it would be faster to look over pages of Google search results than scroll down the front page of my website. Because, you know, sure, whatever. I got nothin'.


1 When you put quotes around a search phrase, you are telling your search engine that you want an exact match. Don't look for individual words Moss, troll, and problem. No, that person has a moss troll problem specifically and needed to come here to try and figure out what to do. This is weird because I don't believe I've ever discussed moss trolls before nor do I know how to deal with them (giant slugs would be my first suggestion, though). Still, thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your time here.

2 YES! Someone is searching for hobo writing! I have officially coined a phrase! (Pauses to make sure it wasn't me. ... no, no it wasn't.) WOO HOO! I hope to go hobo writing again soon.

3 Muah ha ha ha ha, someone Googling Jennifer Hilier's new book came here instead. See that, kiddies? You don't need to write a book, you just need to filch other people's fame. Awesome. I'm winning!

4 Wait... You Googled josephlselby.com to figure out how to come to josephlselby.com? Isn't that like asking what the number is for 9-1-1?

5 I know I said there were only two options, but that one is technically an option too. An incredibly lazy, more work than just coming here, round about way to remember a post I just published last week.

PATV

My friend Luke introduced me to Penny Arcade many years ago and it didn't click. I didn't have an X-Box and my Playstation 1 was gathering dust. I didn't get any of their jokes.

But one day in 2005 we're hanging out in his room and his screensaver is a composite of his favorite PA strips (at that time) and they were funny as hell! We went through the whole thing twice and laughed every time. So I started reading the strip regularly and have continued to do so for six years now. And of course, now I have an X-Box 360 that does not gather dust (thanks to Bioware and Valve) and I get more (but not all) of the jokes.

To continue the trend, I didn't key in on Penny Arcade TV right away. I figured it would be lame self-promotion. It turned out to be awesome self-promotion! Self-promotion has a bad stigma to it, but really this is how you want to promote your product. It's an exploration of character and voice and craft. It's funny and endearing and at the end you really wish you worked there too.

SEO What

It's never too early to start. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. You may see a lot of ads around the internets for SEO companies that will help you game the system. They understand the value of links to and from your content to work your way through Google's algorithm. Once upon a time it was thought of as narcissistic to Google yourself. Now it's a must.

Go do that right now. We'll wait.

If your website or blog did not come up first, you're doing it wrong. Now granted, some of you may have more competition than others. Once upon a time, there was an English rocker of note with my name and I was appearing on page 6. Now I am the entirety of page 1.

Though that's not entirely honest, is it? Google recently changed its algorithm to personalize search results. Googling the exact same term as you will not yield the same top ten results. So I recommend Googling yourself on a friend's computer (or a coworker's who doesn't have an online history talking to you would be best).

Here's what it comes down to, when an agent Googles your name, you want the first option he/she clicks to be you. Your website, your blog, or at least your Twitter account.

But how, Joe? How do we do this? Links, young man/woman. Links will aid you in your effort. The more (valid) locations linking to your website, the more Google's algorithm thinks your important. (Compound this with the frequency in which you are clicked on after a search and up up up you go!) So you know when you're reading a blog and you see a commenter posting his/her website? That's not just to drive content to their site. It's to improve their SEO as well. Live links (not just the text), leading to your site make it important. That's how unethical SEO companies work so quickly. They set up 175 or so false websites and have all of them link back to you, ratcheting you up the list. Google has taken steps to have such results stripped or at least dropped in ranking. They've added a "relevance" variable, which is why attempting this on your own would be a waste.

Participation is the key! And friendship. People who list your website are helping you. When you list their website, you help them. When you participate, you help yourself and if you participate well, you help the community! It's all interconnected, like on Ferngully.

For me personally, one of the biggest challenges to merging my site and my website is that pages that appear in the top ten results are no longer functional. If an agent were to click on "the Inkwell" for example, they would get a page not found and there's unfortunately no way I can fix it. (This also means older sites and interviews I gave when I was wet(ter) behind the ears are starting to show up on the first page. It takes a lot to kill your history on the internet. Always be mindful of echoes from the past.

So go and be popular, boys and girls! I expect you all to start showing up on the first page of Google results by next month. By next year I want yo to be number one! (Unless you are named after someone famous, in which case find a different way to phrase your online presence so that you might be found.)

Still haven't Googled yourself? I'll make it easy for you. Copy and paste this URL http://lmgtfy.com/?q=joseph+l+selby

Replace "joseph+l+selby" with your own name (and use + signs instead of spaces).

iFrames coming around

My website/blog merger is now 95% complete. I ended up keeping (but rephrasing and restructuring) the various lists of work because I find those lists help me choose what to work on next. I got rid of the book covers and blurbs and decided to save those for when I have an actual published book to sell.

So, if you are not reading this through an aggregator like Google Reader but are in fact at my blog, you will see a black panel in the top right corner that has the following links:

Backstory
Details
Character
The Other
Networking


Previously and for the past decade and a half, I have called the page I list my writing the Inkwell. Given the length of time since I actually wrote with a pen and the lack of quill imagery that I used to season my sites with, this term seemed dated. It also reminded me of a time when I did not complete or publish my writing, so something new seemed warranted. I actually dropped the page all together because of the space on that black form. One extra page for Inkwell pushed the last link to the bottom margin. And since that black panel is an image and can't be resized without redoing the entire image, I left it off.

Then I finally figured out how to incorporate iframes I have been talking about previously. Rather than incorporating an Inkwell link, I would combine the Inkwell and FAQ pages into a single page, which is what you see now on the Details page.

Now simultaneously but unrelated to the above, I decided the Biography page was boring and it would be cute to call it Backstory. This created a theme. Having a recommendations page (even though I love to share my interests and make recommendations) seemed pretentious. Those things are aspects of my character, so boom there's that title. FAQ is just details and you need details for a story. I wisely scrapped the use of Foreshadowing because that just didn't make sense anywhere. And I kind of shoe-horned in The Other talking about other people's writing. Previously named Bookshelf might have been more appropriate, but it didn't fit the theme! I'll make that square peg fit in the round hole if I have to take a hammer to it!


But anyway, let's get back to the iframes. iframe stands for inline frame. You remember frames from the early '00s right? Top banner, side navigation, and content frames. They moved us out of tables and made sites look more orderly. The problem was, they didn't resize well and pages would look weird on different screens. With the advent of mobile devices, appearance means a lot more than it did before.

An iframe is a content window like before, but rather than being separate from the element it appears in, it is part of it. It is inline. I'm going to show you how I use iframes in my website and then explain how you can use them in yours. So for this demonstration, go to my Details page. Don't try to understand this reading in Google Reader.

On the Details page you'll see an awesome picture of a kid in Seattle looking at some of the smartest graffiti ever made. And beside it, you'll see five menu items. These items are text linked with HTML and separated by non-breaking spaces. Nothing tricky involved there. Then I add a couple blank paragraphs to bush content below the image, and then I add the following code (replacing [ with < and ] with >).

[iframe name="alice" src="http://josephlselby.webs.com/html/faq.html" width="100%" height="1500"]
[p]
Your browser does not support iframes.[/p]
[/iframe]

What this has done is create an inline frame that takes up 100% of the alloted content space (in this case everything to the left of the gutter) that is 1500 pixes down the page. I named this frame "alice" as in Alice through the Looking Glass. The name is relevant for later, so keep that in mind. The src dictates which of the five menu items opens when first arrive on the Details page. In this instance, it is the FAQ content.

Now here's the first catch. iframes require HTML files and Blogger doesn't have a place that allows you to store HTML files. So you'll need some kind of other online host that lets you keep HTML files that you can access using a URL. For my purposes, I am using my old Webs website that I have recently retired. Without applying a personalized domain name, webs offers free hosting, so it's a good place to upload HTML files to reference from Blogger.

If you're intimidated by HTML, I promise that I used the most rudimentary tags to make this content, something you can learn through a beginner's tutorial.

In the above iframe code, you'll notice the line "Your browser does not support iframes. We put that there for those old and busted browsers people continue to use despite the awesomeness that is available to them today. If your browser can't read iframes, it will instead say whatever text you list there. It may be more fitting to put "Update to a real browser, jerky" and link to Chrome or Rockmelt or something. But for the time being, we're being polite.

Okay, so the code above along with the faq.html file creates the page you see when you first show up on the Details page. How do we do the rest of the menu items?

For each menu item (Novels, Short Stories, Plays, D&D, and FAQ), we link them to their respective HTML files.

[a href="http://josephlselby.webs.com/html/novels.html" target="alice"]Novels[/a]

Now, if you've learned any HTML code, it's probably how to bold, italicize, and underline. But if you've learned anything past that, it's probably how to create links. You may even have learned how to make that link open in a new tab/window by adding target="_blank". Targeting is just what it sounds, stating where you want the link to open. Other options are top, self, etc. In this case, we're targeting alice, which is the name of my iframe. You're opening the listed HTML file within the iframe.

What's even cooler is that target continues to hold true as long as you're on the page with the inline frame. So you can add links in those HTML files that ALSO target alice, which I do on the D&D page.

That's it. That's how simple iframes are. All the content on the Details page appears in iframes. And when I have a book to sell, I can create its own HTML file that can also be linked in the iframe, making everything neat and orderly and awesome.

If you have any questions, feel free to list them in the comments, and I'll see if I can answer them for you.

Relax! (Go to it)

As previously mentioned, I participated in Sara Megibow's Writer's Digest webinar last week. She had a lot of good points and went over various features of her clients that caught her attention during the query process (all her clients except for one came through the slush pile). Not all the things she mentioned had to do with the author's writing. She mentioned repeatedly how impressed she was with Roni Loren's platform. Roni had started her blog before querying and had 50 followers with regular participation (replies counted in double digits, etc).

For aspiring authors who have not yet started establishing a platform or those of us *cough* me *cough* who can count responses on one hand, these kind of comments can cause some extreme anxiety. Half my twitter followers are spam bots! All my comments come from Ted Cross! Woe is me! Woe is ME!!!!

RELAX!

Stop. Breathe. Ask yourself a simple question: What matters most? The answer will ALWAYS be the same.

The writing.

Writing matters, folks. Sure we need to have a platform. Here I am blogging right now. And that's something to build up over time. But as you are working toward querying and then representation and then publishing, remember to keep your writing up front. There are plenty of things to stress about there (holy crap, this is shit! No one is ever going to want to read it!) that you don't need to pile on with worries that not enough people are commenting on your blog.

And if you want empirical proof, head over to Jane Kindred's blog/website. Jane just sold her epic fantasy in a three-book deal. Check out her followers. 14. Bam, I got her by one!

The writing always matters first.

Oh, Hubris, you so crazy

So 85% of my site migration is complete. I finally visualized how I want to display my writing. I've arranged the menu. Now I just need to handle the code and create the necessary files for that code to work. Bouncing back and forth between JavaScript and an iframe. I had been leaning to the latter, but it doesn't look the best in Blogger.

ANYWAY, that's not really what this post is about. This post is about the 15% of my site that's still missing. Why is it still missing? Answer: because I don't know if it belongs.

Now, context: When I first built my site in 2008, I was wrapping up a very successful run as a contributor to the RPGA's Living Greyhawk campaign (and before that, Living Kalamar). Some people thought listing instructions for convention requests sounded cocky of an unpublished author, but that wasn't there for my novels. That was there for D&D. I got invited to a lot of conventions. Free passes, shared rooms, etc. I toured the convention circuit hard for a few years and had a great time doing it. Let me tell you that I couldn't keep that pace today. I'm too old and busted.

So when I built my website, I was beginning the road toward professional writing. I would begin my first manuscript, BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE, a few months later and would start querying in just over a year. So, I put everything up. All the writing I had done from my last college-era play to samples of my D&D adventures to a couple of short stories, and some Living Greyhawk-themed flash fiction.

Three years later, and a lot of that feels like clutter. I haven't written a short story since I finished "Galileo Rocks the Baby" (a story I like but that needs revision to reach its full potential). LG is long gone and I don't get invited to conventions any more. I did not follow the transition to D&D 4e and have left the RPGA (and WotC's freelance staff) all together.

What's important now is my novels. But that's the rub. I don't have novels. I have manuscripts. I was okay putting up a faux cover fro BM&BBQ. I made a few of my own (crap) designs for the mss that followed. I put up blurbs from query letters. Yes, they were that crappy. None of this seemed like a bad thing because, somewhere in that arrogant little brain of mine, I figured that this next ms was the one to get me published.

You see, once I had a book to sell, all that would come down. I'd have the professionally designed cover, the back cover copy, links to Amazon, BN, and that awesome local place in Portsmouth. I'd make it super-awesome-professional. And so what if it had a few other manuscripts. I would revise them and make them super awesome ready to publish and they'd all end up there in an official capacity eventually. (And to be honest, I never thought there would be more than three up there before I had an agent. I know you shouldn't think that way, but it was a secret pride of mine that I thought I'd be different. Fool I!)

Ah naive youth. I am now working on my fifth manuscript (the sequel to my third manuscript--which means I can't even query it when I'm finished). The next ms I can query will be my sixth manuscript and by that point the page starts to look like that kid that kept trying out for sports even though he wasn't good enough to make the team.

So the missing 15% of my website is my writing. I don't know what I should and should not post. What looks like an aspiring author ready for success and what looks like an amateur author not capable of reaching a professional level?

For the moment, I'm just leaving it empty. It's a little disconcerting, but no more so than a bunch of covers and blurbs for novels that don't exist beyond my own computer.

Changes are Afoot

I'm in this rock/hard place situation where Webs.com is not keeping pace with technology, specifically the improvements to HTML like iframes. I have changes I want to make to my website that I simply cannot do with webs. It's showing its age and my site looks much more amateurish than it did three years ago when I first built it. At the same time, having a bad ass HTML5 with JS/CSS rocking your socks doesn't do me any good without a book to promote, as I'm sure I'll want to change it as soon as I DO have a book to promote.

So I'm going to go against what I usually say and start using this blog as a website. I'm in the process of adding static pages. I have not changed my website domain name to point here yet, not until I get things up and running. The links are no longer visible in the right, though, and some pages are there that weren't there before. Others require more work and will be forthcoming.

Please pardon us during our construction. ...and stuff.

Ooooo *shivers* Do it again!

I just had one of those moments. I love those moments. Back in the day, the reason I never finished anything was because I tried to plot things out. I might get a ways into it. I tried to get a feel for it and then write an outline, but I was convinced I couldn't go forward without an outline. What that meant is I never finished anything. 40,000 words on a manuscript and then three days working on an outline and I threw everything out.

I don't outline any more. Now I write by the seat of my pants. The pants/plots paradigm (p3) is a well established discussion on the tubes and I'm not going to tell you to do things one way or the other. Find what works for you and then do it. I will say, however, if you're not finishing anything you start, you may want to try an alternate writing method.

No, the reason the topic comes up today is because I had one of my favorite moments as a pantser. You're writing your chapter and you know where you're going and you just have to craft it to have some kind of competent literary end to the chapter. And then you get to the end of the chapter and your fingers keep typing and all of a sudden something you never considered before has appeared on the page. And not only is it good, it's awesome. The reader inside you screams, HOLY SHIT THAT'S AWESOME! Let's call that tickling the reader.

I suspect (but have no evidence and no inclination to prove my claim) that pantsing allows you to tickle the reader a little bit more because you're engaging in a higher degree of discovery along the way (I won't say you don't know where that's going because such a claim is insulting and usually only made by plotters that don't know better or bad writers who have no actual substance to their work). *deep breath* It's a matter of degree. I may not know the exact route I'm taking, but I know where I'm going and when I need to show up. Sometimes, though, you see that there's a road you thought closed that is actually open so you take it to see where it goes. And that's when your reader gets tickled.

That's a good moment. I like me the tickles.