2013: A Singular Endeavor

I don't normally do a year in review because my pursuit of publication has been an ongoing effort for over four years now and that story has only changed somewhat. Write a novel -> query, write a novel -> query, start new year, repeat. That was 2009 through 2011. Then came 2012, the year of the great rewrites. I was asked by three different agents to revise and resubmit four different manuscripts, and the entire year disappeared while working on those stories.

And here we are at the end of 2013. It started much like it did every year before it. In February I started and finished the first draft of my most recent novel, FAMILY JEWELS. 28 days almost to the minute. I didn't feel proud. I didn't feel excited. I felt like I had been there before and it wasn't working. 2012 had gotten me "this isn't your best work" plus "this is so close but not for me" plus "I can see how another agent would love this, try sending it to X and Y" plus "This is an amazing story, but it can't be your first novel on the market" all of which equalled being in the same place I had been at the start of the year. Obviously I was improving at my craft, but I still didn't have representation and I still didn't have a book deal, and that just wasn't good enough. And so, we begin 2013, the year of the singular endeavor.

I finished the first draft in 28 days. I spent six months on the second draft. I spent another two on the third draft. And another two on the fourth draft. I did other things in between. I joined a roller derby league. I learned how to skate. I learned how to officiate. I became the head non-skating official of my league. I injured myself repeatedly. I joined a group dance studio with my wife. I wrote the first chapter of my next novel. You know, I lived life. I took all that advice I had always said didn't apply to me and I applied it to me.

And here I am at the end of 2013 and guess what? I still don't have an agent. BUT, I've written the best novel I've ever written since I started taking my writing seriously. It's not my favorite story I've written (that still belongs to WITH A CROOKED CROWN), but it is lightyears better than anything I've put down on electrons. I read Donald Maass' prompts on Twitter and gave more thought to characters that would have otherwise been cliches. I got AMAZING feedback from my beta readers and I applied it to fill all the holes and fix all the failures in logic. I asked myself, what more is there to my character and then I tried to find it and offer it up in the story. (Sure, I've done all that before, but not with the rush I've felt before. It was always, "I don't have any more time to make this better" and that was a mistake. This time, it was going to be better until it was the best it could be.)

How do I know I accomplished that? Well, I started querying this past Saturday (with the twelfth draft of my query) and by Monday, I had two full requests. That's right, kids, FULL requests. Not partials. Stick that feather in my cap, why don't I? I think I will. My query is strong. My synopsis doesn't read like a shopping list. My novel rocks. Even if this doesn't get me an agent, I know that what I'm doing now is what works for me, what makes me the best I can be, and I'm confident that if this novel doesn't have an agent calling me up and saying, "Let's take over the world together," the next one will. Or maybe the one after that. Let's keep going until we find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of this Tootsie Pop.

So happy new year to you, ladies and gents. I hope your past year has been as rewarding as mine and that your forthcoming year is filled with hopes and accomplishments.

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.

Musings and Other Thoughts

My wife and I have resumed our Christmas tradition (after a year off due to the economy) of spending a few days up in the White Mountains at a bed and breakfast. Nearby is one of New Hampshire's historical covered bridges. They're historical because these things are over two hundred years old. And I drive my car over them. Yup, that's right, Henry Clay and I have traveled over the same covered bridge (and shame on you if you're an American and don't know who Henry Clay is; history->repeating and all that ;)).

There are covered bridges in other states, but they don't interest me as much. There's something about the aged Appalachians, not so high as the Rockies but higher still than your normal hills and over a minor gorge is a covered bridge, wood cut and laid down centuries before, still viable today. And why is that? Because it's covered. I swear to god, that's the actual reason. It's not some marvel of engineering (well it is, but it's not like the guy was a time traveler or something). They covered the bridge and the planks were protected from the environment and thus have endured. That is awesome.

That is so awesome that I want to write a portal story where a covered bridge is a gateway to the past. I know portal stories are cliche, but I don't care. I love covered bridges.

While on this vacation, my wife read a book that's being turned into what looks like a cheesy movie. She insists I'll like it, but what she describes to me, it sounds kind of cliche. High schoolers acting like high schoolers, evil casters acting like evil casters, Southerners acting like Southerners. Nothing really challenges role expectations. Still, she insists I'll like it. I'll put it at the bottom of my to read pile so I can forget about it.

She did say something that piqued my imagination. She mentions how the Southern bitties don't like the Daughters of the Revolution.

Light bulb!

You always get stories about popular groups with global Machiavellian schemes. Masons, templars, illuminati, etc. What if all those organizations warred and defeated each other and now least organizations battle each other. Daughters of the Revolution versus the Sons of the Confederacy. Knights of Columbus versus the Elks versus the Rotary. What kind of plots would these organizations advance and who would be the unlucky bastard to get stuck between them?

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.

Two Thumbs Up to Level Up

One of the perks of living/working in a major metropolitan area is that new technologies become viable in the marketplace sooner. For me, that means paying with my phone rather than cash/credit card.

You might have heard of Square. It won best new technology a year or two ago. Rather than the standard credit card reader that plugs into a phone line, Square card reader attaches to a smart phone. The company charges a lower processing fee than credit card companies and doesn't have any of the extra service or equipment fees. AND if they enable the GPS component, customers that have the Square Cardcase app can simply give their name and the smart phones communicate with each other. Nifty!

The problem is, not a lot of people in Boston are adopting Square. Starbucks just invested in the company and is converting all their locations to Square. I find Starbucks coffee disgusting so that doesn't do me a lot of good.

BUT, Square is not the only such company. Another is Level Up. Level up gives the vendor a smart phone to take pictures of QR codes that display on the customer's smart phone. The QR code is linked to a token and that token is linked to your credit card (thus, if your phone is ever stolen, you can just deactivate the token to protect your credit card). Unlike Square where the motivation is lower processing fees, Level Up creates more of a club mentality. Each vendor offers a discount for first-time users and then additional discounts when repeat customers pass certain benchmarks (so I get $3 off on my first-time purchase and then $5 after I've spent $50 at that restaurant, or what have you). Level Up doesn't charge processing fees on every purchase, but instead charges a fee based on the discount earned. That means that the merchant is getting free charges up until benchmarks are met. It can be great for vendors who might not get a large amount of repeat business (or get repeat business semi-frequently to hit that sweet spot in between) but the cost against the discount is higher than the individual charge fees, so it's not a revolutionary "how can they afford that" kind of deal.

I use Level Up a lot because merchants all around me use it. There are a dozen different places in immediate walking distance of my office and more along the subway path I take to work. I love love love paying with my phone rather than a credit card (except at MJ O'Connor's which is the only place I've ever had experience a "problem"; I think they just don't know how to use the phone).

The reason I'm talking about this today is because Level Up just introduced a new feature that I'm over the moon about. You can donate a percentage of your savings to charity. So instead of me getting $5 off at Four Burgers after I spent $50, I get a percentage of that $5 and the charity gets the rest. In this case, I buy the hamburger I was going to buy anyway, I save $2.50, and Jumpstart gets $2.50 as well. Not earth shattering, but it's more than they were getting before.

If I hadn't been a fan (which I was), I would be now. This is an awesome opportunity for people to give. If you have Level Up merchants in your area, give it a try.

The Right Ingredients

Have you watched the 10th Anniversary Firefly Panel from ComicCon yet? If not, we'll wait for you.



That hour was well spent, yes? I watched it again while you were watching it. It was time well spent, I think. (Granted, I'm a hardcore Firefly fan.) There's one scene in particular that struck me as amazing, and I wanted to talk about it here.

In established media like film and television, it's hard to know how much we as fans learn about the show, the cast, etc is real and how much of it is spin. You can take it on face value. You might see them in person and think, yeah that seems real. Or you might wonder if the actors are still acting. They can do that, you know. Act. It's what they do for a living.

I bring this up because the family-like nature of the cast of Firefly is well documented and the pessimist inside me has always wondered just how true that was. You see it in special features, but that's just a glimpse and a glimpse can be misleading. The moderator of the panel actually mentioned that, and that's how we got to the coolest story about the "business" side of this that I think I've heard. (Business being the craft of making a television show and not the story they're telling.)

It's a natural segregation that actors spend their time with other actors and crew spend their time with other crew. They have the most in common. It's natural that they would divide themselves as such. But that can create a division that inhibits the overall goal of everyone to create the best possible product. So Nathan Fillion (who is always credited for fostering the family-like nature of the show) walks up to a group of other actors early on in filming. He says "This is a contest. The person who can name the most people's name is the winner. That's Brian, Tom, Tim, and Frank. I'm winning." And just like that, rather than people forming into small groups, everyone made the effort to know everyone else. Even if it began as a manufactured competition, it ended with a group of people that knew each other and made an amazing product.

Having experienced live performance first-hand, I cannot stress how large an impact the attitudes of everyone involved has on the final product. One bad seed can turn something magical into something miserable. And, as Nathan demonstrates, the opposite is true as well. More than ever I love the Firefly crew and cast. My respect for Nathan as a professional is through the roof. And as soon as all my books make me JK Rawling rich, I'll take steps to reward these people. They've earned it.

Until then, watch the video. Watch Firefly if you haven't done so in awhile. If you want an awesome lesson in writing craft, listen to the director's commentary for Out of Gas. Tim Minear did some amazing things with that story.


Completely unrelated to this, if you haven't watched Thomas Jane's fan-made short for The Punisher, check it out.

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.

That's More Like It

So do you remember back on April 3rd, when I was complaining about how I hadn't been writing that much? Well, I hadn't, and it was frustrating. Work was sucking the creativity out of my brain. I worked late. I worked more when I got home. I worked on weekends. That's how publishing goes. Like the military, there's a lot of hurry up and wait, but once shit's on, shit's on. So all my delayed titles parachuted in at once and I had a few weeks to make them happen. WHILE at the same time being asked if I could publish early.

Want to work in publishing? Behold your fate. This kind of thing never changes. Turn over late, publish early. Glamorous, yes?

Anyway, so I do what I do because that's what I do and get my work done (and publish early, behold my awesomeness). This means I have time to do things other than work, which means I have time to write. It's amazing how hard it is to write when you're spending all your other time working. Even if I wasn't working on the train, I was so exhausted from working all the time, I typically just fell asleep or watched Stargate SG-1.

So, on April 3rd, I was hanging out at 68,000 words. Two weeks later? 98,000 words. That's much better. That's the kind of productivity I like to see! It's going to take a lot of work to get this thing up to snuff, it being a first draft and all. But the main goal of a first draft is to finish the first draft, and I'm glad to see that progress is being made in that regard.

And you? How is your writing coming along? I see Ted Cross is mad in March with his stories and Nate Wilson is blogging like no one else can and Livia Blackburne is on her bajillionth draft. Update the class, kiddies. Let us know how you're doing.