In Between Times

I always take a little break between manuscripts. I consider it a "voice reset." I used to be so jazzed I would immediately roll into a new project, but I found the voice of the next project sounded exactly the same as the one I had just finished. It inevitably led to a lot of rewriting and sometimes I'd have to drop all the work done as unusable. So now, I take time off and refresh. Sometimes that means playing around on HitRecord. This time around, I dabbled in my Knight Rider fan fiction. Mostly, though, I've been writing a lot of documentation. I'm the head of non-skating officials for New Hampshire Roller Derby and it's the start of the season. I've been writing a ton of "How to Officiate" documentation, which is a totally similar but totally different skill set than fiction writing. I do a lot of documentation for work, too, so it's not jarring. It does draw from the same pot of energy, though. I have trouble writing documentation and fiction at the same time.

Also, I think part of me is stalling until February. I wrote the first draft of FAMILY JEWELS in February then spent the rest of the year making it awesome. I think part of me wants to try and recreate that magic. I'm torn on what to do next. I had planned on writing THE CENOSAPIEN AGENDA. The original story idea had been as a sequel to FJ, but it quickly evolved into a different character (Serenity McIntyre), a different setting, and a different genre. Interesting enough, it changed so much that the sequel idea to FJ became a valid sequel again. So I can write TCA or I can write DISAPPEARING, INC., which is the sequel to FJ. Something to ponder as February begins next week. I'm still writing "How to Head NSO" documentation, so I guess this is a curse of riches situation or something.

(And admittedly, part of me is hoping that an agent says, "BAM! This is it. You need to get to work on a sequel because publishers will want more of this!" which would make the decisio-nmaking process much easier.)

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.

Sex Scenes and Sexuality

I have, in my time, both acted as and utilized beta readers. With that, I've found that different authors have different policies in how they treat their beta readers. I have rules on how I deal with them. They are unpaid volunteers that are doing me a great service without any promise of return. I gain nothing by arguing with them (a trap too many authors fall into, in my opinion) nor do I gain anything by trying to change their minds.

My Rules (a list that may or may not be expanded on later as it wasn't the actual focus of this post)

  1. Say thank you
  2. Understand you don't have to keep everything they say, but neither should you ignore everything they say.
  3. Do not explain your story to them before, during, or after they've read it. If they don't understand it from what you've written, you weren't clear enough (or they read too quickly, which does sometimes happen *cough* my wife *cough*).
  4. Do not argue with them. You don't win beta reading by proving your point. You win it be receiving valuable feedback.
  5. Don't be afraid to ask questions. They know your story now. They are a resource. Especially if it pertains to their professional field. Don't waste time being scared that it'll make your job harder. The goal of beta reading is to revise another draft and make the story better
  6. Do not seek approval. Seek constructive criticism. "I like it" is never good feedback unless it is following by a bulleted list of what could be done better (numbered lists are also acceptable).

With those rules in mind, I'm going to bend #4 because I received feedback that really gave me pause. I don't want to argue with the reader (well, I do, but I'm not going to). Instead, I'm going to respond to the statement in general terms and explain why I respectfully disagree.

In my current novel, I have a gay male character who has sex with another gay male character. The sex is not the point of the scene and it occurs in only a few sentences. The point of the scene is fear, the two men are soldiers and they know they're going to die soon. They take comfort in each other's company before that inevitable time should come.

The comment I took issue with was that the scene "if you can call a few sentences" sounded like it was written by a straight white guy. It needed to be more graphic to demonstrate that I was genuinely okay with two male characters having sex. I can certainly see that interpretation, but I think that interpretation reveals the bias of the reader and not the writer. If the characters had been male and female and the two had been heterosexual, I would have written the moment exactly the same. The sex wasn't the point. Comfort was the point.

Perhaps the flaw isn't that I did not write it graphic enough but rather did not make it comforting enough. But I would challenge anyone that would suggest graphicness somehow proves acceptance of a sexual act to swap the sexuality of the characters and see if the same scene works. If so, it has nothing to do with the writing but the reading.

I am waiting for more beta feedback to come in before I fully revise the draft, but I have gone back over the scene and don't see a positive in adding more graphic content. Perhaps a little more lyrical description, but any more would undermine the pacing of the moment.

Novice Juggler

I know it's been a while since I posted. I've been meaning to for a while, but some "things" happened. I hate things. Rarely does one converse about things and speak of good news. Good news is "events" or even "news". "Things" mean shit's gone down.

For me that's my labrum. What's a labrum you ask? Good question. We all hear about rotator cuffs because pitchers tear them all the time. They're what make you rotate. The labrum is the tendon that sits inside your shoulder socket to let your bones do their thing without grinding together. I tore mine in 1997 but thought it was only a bad muscle pull, so I let it heal naturally. This was stupid on my part and made my shoulder for shit ever since. Well never fear, it's torn again so maybe this time it'll get fixed for real. Of course that means drilling holes through things and tying things and being in pain until all that happens. I've been on vicodin, which, I don't know why anyone would want to be addicted to that shit. Your brain is fuzzy, you can't comprehend, you're tired ALL the time, and you can't poop! And people take this shit willingly? No thanks. If I'm going to be fuzzy headed, it'll be from the pain. At least I won't be tired.

But I have accomplished some things. The first draft of FAMILY JEWELS wrapped up at the end of February. I spent my writing time finishing Peter V. Brett's THE DAYLIGHT WAR. If you're reading his Demon Cycle, I expect you've already picked this one up. If you're not reading his Demon Cycle, you're missing the best epic fantasy being written in the market today, so go pick up THE WARDED MAN (in the US, THE PAINTED MAN in the UK). Normally after that very brief break, I would jump right into a second draft, but I'm considering a revision to "The Rules" and as such am trying new methods to see if they improve my process. I started the second draft but immediately stopped. I'm going to write a short story instead. One with mermaids! And not the Disney mermaids either.

What I don't know is how my typing will be affected if they drill holes into my bones. I go for an MRI on Monday and things should become more clear after that. Until then, mermaids and future private detectives and lots of Aleve because my head remains clear on Aleve. Screw you, vicodin.

Hell, Flip it on its Ear

I'm reading Tad Williams' DIRTY STREETS OF HEAVEN. Not only is this the latest novel from one of my favorite authors, it is officially the first novel I've ever paid more than $9.99 for, without some kind of asterisk attached1.

Williams does a wonderful job building out a recognizable Judeo-Christian angelic hierarchy without necessarily committing to Judeo-Christion affirmation2. Watching the bureaucracy and power games played out by Heaven and Hell not only against each other but also against their own foot soldiers adds a lot of layers to the book. I wonder how much research Williams did ahead of time and how much is just pure imagination woven together by an expert author.

There is one thing that's nagging at me, though. For all the questions put forth of how this works or that works, what do they do and why do they do it, one underpinning facet of our real life mythology is the understanding of God and the fall of Lucifer and those cast out of heaven that populated hell. That's a very Christian bit of religious mythology and one that isn't questioned in the book at all.

In fact, anyone writing angel stories (and they've exploded the last few years--so much so that I've abandoned my own fledgling idea for an angel story) seems to keep this one line consistent. God created the angels, Lucifer rebelled, there was a war among the angels, and the rebels lost. They were cast down into perdition to burn for all eternity.

But here is this book with all these wheels within wheels and political maneuvering and propaganda. Wouldn't it be interesting if Lucifer hadn't rebelled at all? If the Christian mythos of the fallen angels was all propaganda by the true victors?

There were five archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and Lucifer. Lucifer was the proudest of the lot and thought himself equal to God3, so he rose up. But what if that's not true. What if he was the only one faithful. What if the archangels conspired against their creator and Lucifer was the scapegoat. The angels rose up, God was cast out of heaven and imprisoned in a shadowy/fiery pit (depending on your leaning toward the Judeo or the -Christian). The four archangels then spun their propaganda to the various choirs and armies and angels and the story spread. You might have the whole hierarchy of heaven operating on the perverted instructions of a long-absent deity.

And you might have that scapegoat spending the rest of his immortality dealing with the repercussions of everyone thinking him a monster and a traitor all the while he remains faithful and trying to free God from his prison.

I don't know what dealings he would have on earth to accomplish this goal, but that's where the story would likely take place, at least in part. And his name would be Luc. If I ever come up with the larger details of this plot, I will make it into a story.



1 I paid more for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, but I split the cost with my wife, so really it only cost me $7. I paid more for THE MAGICIANS AND MRS. QUENT, but I used a gift card so really it only cost me $2. And I paid more for HitRecord.org's TINY BOOK OF TINY STORIES, VOL. 2, but that's an enhanced eBook and if a book comes with videos, I'm cool with breaking my ten-dollar limit.

2 The main character at one point makes the astute observation that perhaps their understanding of heaven is only framed in a context that they understand from their experiences as mortals4 and that if they had been Hindu in life, they wouldn't have been given such Judeo-Christian terminology. That was interesting. I'd like to see that explored further.

3 A number of stories change his motivations to him feeling sorry for the lot humans were given or some other reason for breaking his fidelity to the highest, but originally it was just a matter of pride. One of the seven deadly sins.

4 I know the author gets to make the rules, but given the various shootings lately and the frequent use of the word angel, the pedant in me feels obligated to point out that angels are separate beings from humans all together and no one alive, according to current religious mythology can ascend to become an angel. That's like a dog aspiring to become a cat after it dies. Sainthood is the highest reaches for a human. Angels are something different. That's why Alan Rickman doesn't have a dick in "Dogma".

A Review: CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE

If you know anything about me, you know that my favorite author is Lois McMaster Bujold. And guess what? She has a new book out! There are four categories of Bujold books: Vorkosigan saga, Challion tetralogy, the Sharing Knife, and the Spirit Ring.

The Spirit Ring is the first fantasy book she ever wrote. It shows. It's good, but nothing of the quality you should expect from her. The Sharing Knife is a four-part series that has concluded, though the world has room for more. The Challion tetralogy was not conceived of as a five-part series and there are only three books so far, but there better damn well be five books. This is some of the best fantasy you will ever read ever anywhere period don't argue. And then there is her most famous series, the Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan -> Miles Naismith Vorkosigan series with a bajillion novels, novellas, and short stories (including some stories like FALLING FREE that take place in the setting without any of the main characters).

This most recent offering is CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S1 ALLIANCE, the often seen cousin of Miles, Ivan You Idiot. As the series has continued, Ivan has gone from a feckless womanizer to someone who is immensely capable and goes out of his way to hide it so no one notices and assigns him more responsibility. This book explores that motivation and it's AWESOME if you're a fan. If this is your first book in the Vorkosigan universe, put the book down and go read CORDELIA'S HONOR2. The book will feel incredibly mediocre unless you've read other books in the series.

Specifically, the climax will disappoint you if you don't know Miles and you don't know Ivan and you don't know the difference between them. I might not have spotted this as quickly if I hadn't seen Bujold in person at a book signing (where she signed my book and I promptly had an anxiety attack and ran away--yeah, behold my coolness). She mentioned that when she was writing, she caught herself writing a Miles book and not an Ivan book. Miles succeeds through perpetual forward motion. Ivan lets things come to him, and you see this in the book a LOT. Faced with a problem, the solution is to wait and hope it goes away. This is most obvious in the climax and if you don't know that this book is entirely Ivan, you might not like it.

But this novel is Ivan. This novel shows Bujold's mastery of character and voice. If you changed the names to something else and read this book, you'd easily know this is an Ivan book.

This book takes place chronologically before CRYOBURN. I know that doesn't mean they were written that way, but I wish they were. This is the better of the two books and CRYOBURN could have used some more work (except for the epilogues--Gregor's makes me cry). I started reading this book on Monday and finished it on Friday. I actually stopped writing on my train ride and just started reading the book.

So here's the short review: You read even some of the Miles books? Read this. You've never read any Miles book? Read CORDELIA'S HONOR. You'll get to this one eventually and you'll be rewarded for taking the extra time.

1 The Vor are a warrior caste on Barrayar, so take the last name and add Vor at the front. This makes names like Kosigan (KOS-i-gan) Vorkosigan (vor-KOS-i-gan). Despite the obvious rule of pronunciation that I applied to EVERY Vor name in the series, I have been pronouncing Vorpatril VOR-pa-tril instead of vor-PAT-ril as Bujold herself pronounces it. Turns out, I've been mispronouncing a LOT of names. E-ka-TER-in is actually e-KAT-er-in. Cetagandan like Set is actually actually like Seat. Even Barrayar which has TWO Rs is Bear-a-yar, which I think is totally unfair and I refuse to pronounce it that way.

2 CORDELIA'S HONOR is an omnibus3 that combines both SHARDS OF HONOR and BARRAYAR. I read SHARD'S OF HONOR every year. I didn't think I'd ever be one of those people, but it turns out I am.

3 Wonder to yourself, how are you going to read all these stories that have spanned nearly thirty years? Don't worry! The publisher, Baen, has collected almost all of them into omnibi. YOUNG MILES, MILES ERRANT, etc etc. The only ones you won't find are MEMORY4, CRYOBURN, and CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE. You'll actually find one story included a few times, which has to do about acceptable page counts and subject matter and not any nefarious decision on the part of Baen. Still, crap move not to include MEMORY anywhere.

Because 4 MEMORY is my second favorite Vorkosigan saga book after SHARDS OF HONOR. If you think you can do without this one, THINK AGAIN! Once you've gotten to the MILES IN LOVE omnibus, track down MEMORY and make sure to read it so we can huddle together and giggle about the scene where he wears his medals because that's AWESOME!!! *GOO!*

So...yeah, that's my review. I guess. Lots of fanboyishness in there, but I hope I was honest.

A Review: THE CITY'S SON

Once upon a time I was a podcaster. In addition to the weekly audio recordings, it also afforded me a place to act like a more professional blogger. I could review books (and in fact, reviewed a Tad Williams book that I had been keen to receive). I no longer podcast (or I should say, I no longer host any podcasts; I would certainly be a guest on a show). That leaves me this location to do book reviews, and I'm more hesitant to do so. Here it makes it feel personal rather than professional, and I don't want people to think I'm attacking their work. (I'm also critical on everything, including my own work, but if people don't know me, they might not understand that.) I still have a review saved in my drafts of a book I LOVE (and have read multiple times) that I've never published because there's one part of the book I have a serious problem with and don't want the author to think I dislike his work.

Despite all that, an author asked me on Twitter to tell him what I think of his book when I was finished, and I can't do that in 140 words, so here it is, my first book review in this journal. Not to leave him out there by himself, I'm also going to review another book later this week. Two in one week! Two! It must be Christmas.

And so we begin. I recently read THE CITY'S SON by Tom Pollock. This is an urban fantasy, and I don't normally read urban fantasy. This is also a young adult novel, and I'm tired of young adult novels. It seems like that's all there is on the market, for the most part. So now that you know that, here are my opinions of the book:

Read it. It's a good book.

Boom. Review done.

Wait, I'm supposed to do more? Okay. Here's the general description: Set in modern-day London, there is a world-within-a-world, but not with fairies, vampires, or werewolves. This is a wholly new concoction of not-humans, which makes this the best urban fantasy I've read in years. YEARS! This is the kind of setting that gets turned into a role playing game and you get to play it for years and years until you forget that it was based on a book.

People live in the walls. People live in light bulbs and depending on what kind of light bulbs they are (phosphorus versus sodium) they may hate the other kind of light bulb person. Trainwraiths that remember their passengers, wolves made of scaffolding, and so on and so forth. It is AMAZING. The setting of this book is so awesome that I could give up the plot and just wander around marveling at the world beneath London.

Which also leads me to my first complaint. Much like Buffy, it is hand-waved away that normal people self-delude themselves if they're exposed to this world. They cannot accept it, thus they do not accept it. They forget or rationalize or in some other way dismiss what they've seen. Except for every human character we meet that actually interacts with them. One of the two main characters of the book is introduced to this world and NEVER EVEN BLINKS AN EYE. She rolls right into it like she's hanging out in Camden Market or something.

I had trouble accepting how readily the human characters interact with the other world, but you get over it just like the book does. It speeds along so you don't have time to think about that (which means you either keep reading and accept it or you stop reading, which I almost did, but I'm glad I didn't).

Speed along because there isn't just an imaginative setting, there's an imaginative history to that setting. You get to learn about the Pavement Priests (SO COOL!), the mother of the streets, the Chemical Synod (so cool, but the long Ses make me think they're speaking in parseltongue). The setting is cool, but so much cooler because of the people that make it up.

Which gets us to the people. Ups and downs here. There are the two main characters, boy and girl. Then there's the female main character's best friend. There was a little confusion for me at the beginning because the best friend's nickname is Pencil and THAT name gets truncated down to Pen. The thing is, I thought they both had nicknames, one was Pen and one was Pencil, so things got really confusing really quick. Once I realized that Pen was Pencil and only one had a nickname, it made more sense. I was also disappointed because I thought Pen and Pencil was a great way to describe their friendship in as few words as possible.

The relationship between Beth and Pen is the high point of this book. As personal interactions go, Pollock nails these two the best. It feels the most natural. It reads the most engrossing, and it feels the most realistic. Second is the relationship between Beth and her dad, which really hits its high point in the middle of the book when neither character are together. It really helps their individual arcs along, and I was a bit jealous at how subtly those arcs had their foundation lain in the early chapters with these two characters. That was some mighty fine character development.

The relationship between the two main characters, well, that was the inspiration for this post. Now that I've finished the book, my opinion remains the same. (The backstory of the male main character is pretty wicked as well, lest you think I am ignoring him.)

Speaking of previous posts inspired by the book, there is also this post. I almost quit reading the book because of the errors. And I'm not talking about "Oh no, that's not an error, it's a Britishism rather than an Americanism". I mean, there are errors. Words missing. Words included that shouldn't be (words included that shouldn't that be). ESPECIALLY at the beginning. It dies down after the beginning but never fully goes away. It's rampant at the beginning of the book and was driving me nuts. This suggests a number of possible options: the beginning of the book received the most revision closest to publication (such as editorial notes), thus was not edited as much as other parts of the book that remained the same. The publisher skimped on editing. Or the author is atrocious at self-editing and that was the best the publisher could do. I'm leaning toward the first option myself, as I want to give both the publisher and the author the benefit of the doubt. (Having worked in book production before moving on to media, I know how, why, and how often publishers skimp on editing to save time and money.)

But lastly, and why I'm over the moon about the book, and why it means so little to you whether you'll like the book, his voice is SO similar to my own. I wouldn't have written this book. I've never been inspired to write urban fantasy. But if you had told me that you were from the future and I had written an urban fantasy and you let me read this book, you might convince me. Word usage, sentence style, cadence. It all sounds like me. And that's not to suggest that my voice makes it superior. It is to suggest that there is HOPE! I have improved significantly over the last year. I've moved on to the next level, I think in my brain. I'm ready to do this! But I'm not doing this. I'm still doing that other thing, and that can make it hard to keep one's chin up. But seeing Tom's book out there, that really makes it feel like there are agents out there that resonate to the way I write (just not necessarily what I've written to date). (That Tom's agent is on my short list of agents I want to work with only sweetens that pot, it is not the cause for this adulation.)

A pessimist (like myself) might think that an agent finding that voice wouldn't want another author that sounds similar, but that sliver of optimism I have in there says, but Tom writes urban fantasy and I never ever write urban fantasy (and with less finality, I rarely ever think of young adult stories either). So let's do this! Regardless of my dominant pessimism or my slight optimism, the simple fact that someone with a voice similar to mine has found an agent and a publisher says that YES there are fish out in that sea, so I need to keep swimming or I'll suffocate and the other fish who aren't those fish will eat me and crap me out to be food for phytoplankton. No one wants that.

So, back to the short review, THE CITY'S SON is worth the cost and worth the read. You should give it a try. I quit books in the first chapter ALL THE TIME, and I made it through this one. That should speak for itself. And follow Tom on Twitter. He's good people.

Shoo! Get away, you!

Generally, I feel in a rush to be published and begin my professional career in earnest. Part of that is because I've been writing for so long and am a touch ashamed that I only recently started taking it so seriously. I lost a whole decade in there where I might have made something of myself. A small part of it is that there are these kids getting published now. 22, 18, 16, sixteen really? I wasn't good enough to publish at twenty-six much less sixteen. Then again, whole lost decade. I guess we can call it two lost decades!

But perhaps the biggest reason I'm in such a rush, the reason that isn't so obvious as "I'm old" is that other people keep having the same ideas I do! There's nothing more I hate than when someone reads something of mine and says "This is just like ____!"

FUCK! I don't want to be just like _____. I want to be me. Now, sometimes it just reminds them of the tone or the style and that's fine. But sometimes it's a matter of whole story concepts! You know that episode of Supernatural where it turns out a prophet has been writing books that detail the adventures of Sam and Dean? You want to know who came up with that story before the show even aired? That's right! And now if I ever publish it, someone will say "Hey, that's just like that episode of Supernatural!" No, sir, that episode of Supernatural is just like my book even though my book will have come out years later.

Sigh.

The longer this takes the more frequently that happens. I'll have to beat other people's stories away with a stick. A stick I say! *thwap thwap*

Okay, now I'm going to go watch Hugo, which is very similar to a story idea of mine, but it's okay because it's based on a book that came out before I had the idea, so really I'm encroaching on that guy's world.

(Yeah, I know there are only so many stories, but some of them hit closer to each other than I like. Dammit.)

The Cinema!

It's hard not to say Lord of the Rings is my favorite movie1. The most epic of fantasies done better than any genre movie ever before. But for all its awesomeness, I always come back to Out of Sight. Steven Soderberg's 1998 movie with George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, and Ving Raimes. The writing, the acting, the directing is all top notch. It has the perfect slow burn for a couple that spark right away.

That kind of thing is on my mind lately. How people get together in books almost seems obligatory any more. If two people of opposite genders show up on the same side of whatever they're battling, they seem required to get together. In the book I'm reading now, the writer really knocks it out of the park when he's writing about the female main character and her best friend. So much so I thought there was going to be a reveal that the two were lesbians and in love. But when she's around the male main character, even though the chemistry isn't nearly as good, the story pushes them together.

I'm watching Out of Sight and seeing what would in any other sense look like a meaningless conversation but it's full of romantic tension and some foreshadowing. I notice that I've been skirting away from relationships. They're usually already in progress and without complication because the "will they or won't they" seems pretty transparent. It's almost always a will they. Or, if they're together, they won't for much longer because people just can't seem to keep their shit together after the weight of the world (author) slaps them together like legos.



1 I know there were three of them2, but I consider them one movie. If you're going to be stubborn about it, I think Fellowship most improves (and surpasses) the book, but I still say that all three (extended) movies form a single bad ass movie.

2 Unless you were thinking I was talking about the animated movie. It's animation style is revolutionary, but it just can't compare to the live-action movie.

All In?

I was speaking with an agent a few weeks back, and we got on the subject of self-publishing. As has been recorded here, my opinion on self-publishing has evolved as self-publishing itself has evolved. I won't say it's changed, because that loses the nuance of my progress. The majority of self-published work I read is tear-your-eyes-out bad. Sure the gatekeepers have been tossed aside, but for all their difficulty, those gatekeepers added a degree of value. Bad stuff still gets through, but not so much.

Conversely to that, good stuff also comes out of self-publishing and it can be an avenue for certain circumstances that best benefit the author. That's my position (and will remain my position going forward): do what's best for you and your career. That does not require me to pick one side over the other. I pick both sides. (Likewise, the DOJ is incredibly on the mark and off the mark at the same time with its anti-trust case. It's shocking how much I agree with things they say but for totally different reasons and how much I disagree with their proposed solutions, but that's a different conversation.)

Anyway, (I haven't had a lot of sleep over the last week. I apologize for rambling), I was talking to this agent and we discuss self-publishing and whether I have considered it, which I have. The second time THE TRIAD SOCIETY came a hair's breadth away from getting me representation, I was heartbroken. It's good enough! I cried. I know it's good enough! I'm so tired of being rejected! Why is this so hard?

And that is why I don't self-publish. Because it's easier to publish (not to be successful at it, but to publish it, it is sooo much easier). And once it becomes that easy, why would you ever want to do it the hard way again? My goal is to gain representation and publish with an established publisher. I will self-publish a couple titles, most likely, in the future, but that is not my goal. So if I self-publish now, that goal is over and lost. I will never endure rejection after rejection when I can snap my fingers and have a book appear (and I make ebooks for a living, so before you say "it's harder than that" keep in mind I've been making them for close to a decade now).

Also, said agent with whom I had this conversation asked to read THE TRIAD SOCIETY. In between heartbreak and now, another agent asked to read my best work. Given how close I had come before, I obviously chose this one. I tweaked a chapter I was dissatisfied with and sent it off. She dropped the truth like a hammer. "This is not your best work." End stop.

I determined a rewrite from her feedback and began said rewrite for this request. My scope for the rewrite flopped right away. As soon as I revised the setting, the actual plot fell apart. It couldn't happen the way I envisioned with my new constrictions. But as I went over content, I saw two things. I LIKE this story. I like it the way it is. I don't want to change the scope or lose the plot. Also, it was NOWHERE NEAR MY BEST WORK. What the hell was I thinking? What a lost opportunity. I have truly grown as a writer because I'm looking at this and I want to reach through space-time and slap myself. What was I thinking sending this to agents in such a state.

Which makes me hopeful for this time around. It's better. It's significantly better than it's ever been before. If she turns it down, will I self-publish? Probably not. The last time I said "It's good enough!" I was wrong. Perhaps I'm wrong this time too. Perhaps I have more growing to do.

To quote Kima Griggs from The Wire, Sometimes you gotta play it hard.



And with that, I'm going to go drown myself in coffee so I can get through the work day. Night night.

Media Evolved and Why Your Blog No Longer Matters

I started my first LiveJournal back in February 2003. Later than some, earlier than many, well before Blogger appeared. Then I had a writing-focused LiveJournal. Then I finally made the switch over here. And I like my journals, whether it's been in LJ form or Blogger form. I don't "blog" as the term means. I don't post frequently enough or in a topical enough fashion to warrant calling it a blog. I journal, which I prefer because it's lower stress, lower demand, and I get to talk about whatever I'm in the mood to talk about.

In the future I hope to be able to post things like "I just signed with X agent" and "X agent just sold my novel to X publisher!" and "Check out a preview of my cover, I just made a mess in my pants!" These are all things that I want to post. Years from now I can look back at those posts and remember fondly the excitement I felt with I signed with X agent and the excitement-turned-fear of selling my novel to a publisher (a three-book deal? But what if I choke?!?!). That's why I keep going with this thing. It's a post-modern scrapbook.

Here's the thing, the people that say you need a blog to establish your platform? Yeah...not so much. Not any more. Blogs peaked and are now on the strong decline. The titans of writing bloggers have gone away or strongly decreased their output. They're exploring video, trying more convenient avenues like Facebook fan pages, or just not wanting to make the effort because Twitter is so much easier.

A blog is no longer necessary to establish your platform. You want to interact with like-minded people or people who are fans of your work? Get on Twitter. You'll speak with agents, you'll speak with peers, you'll speak with fans. You'll communicate in near-real time because we're all hooked up and jacked in. It won't let you look back years from now and remember fondly that time you tweeted a yfrog pic of your cover. But it will get you the largest and fastest distribution to people interested in what you do, with the most dynamic audience you could hope for. It will change, like the internet always does, but for now, Twitter is king (or queen if you prefer; I consider Twitter gender neutral).

You want proof? Twitter has been down most of the day. People are on Facebook freaking out that Twitter is down. If Blogger was down, would the same thing happen? No. The former as an immediate bridge to your audience. The latter is a library for your audience to come read at their convenience.

So let's add this to the list of how to spot a phony claiming to be a social media expert:

1. If a person tells you to be on Facebook and then starts talking about "Friends," they don't know what they're talking about. If you're on Facebook, you create a fan page. It does not require you to approve anyone wanting to follow you (as some of these people will be complete strangers you don't want to share your life and information with) and there are no limits on how many people can be a fan (whereas there are limits to how many friends you can have).

2. If a person tells you to get a blog to establish your platform, tell them they're in the wrong decade. You need Twitter. You need a blog to catalog your work, but if you have no work to catalog, your blog will net you similar returns only after a lot more work.

Another Epic Fantasy Discussion

What makes Epic fantasy Epic fantasy and not just traditional, urban, or any other sub-genre is a well-worn conversation. One that I'm kind of bored with, actually. It's been discussed enough that the informed have come to a general consensus (scope of setting/cast/stakes, etc), the uninformed bumble in that general direction, and the hair splitters try alternate arguments to come to the same conclusion. (No insult against hair splitters, as I've split many a hair myself.)

BUUUUT, as I was watching the most recent episode of Extra Credits, something new in the conversation caught my attention.

In my anecdotal review of fantasy fiction, I find the hero's journey to be incorporated more frequently into epic series than in traditional fantasy. Epic books by their very size allow more space to follow the many steps of the journey. And it made me wonder, is that an easy marker to distinguish between the two? Is a traditional fantasy more likely to skip over the refusal of the call than is an epic fantasy?

Discuss.