The Satisfaction of Success

I am a success!

What? Did I get an agent? No. Did I get an offer of publication from a major publishing house? No. Did I get a date with Rosario Dawson? No.

Yet I am still a success. I have not accomplished any of the above professional goals (and if I never accomplish that third one, it'll probably go a lot smoother with my wife), but I have done the thing I perhaps love the most. I finished a novel.

This feeling right here, the mix of excitement and euphoria, is the big pay off for me. It's not the completion of the first draft. That's just a step in the road. It's finishing the revision where I feel confident enough in the manuscript that I can send it to other people to read. Of all the works that I have finished (and even JEHOVAH'S HITLIST, which isn't complete), I felt THE TRIAD SOCIETY was my weakest offering. One of the reasons I continued on to JH instead of TTS was because I was unenthusiastic about he ms. That extra time helped a lot, though, and I realized a lot of my mistakes. I tweaked here and fixed there and made one massive change (Herman to Annelie) that made all the difference in the world.

I just took something mediocre and made it great. ...or at least better. Good enough that I'm happy with it, feel it's representative of my talent. I have accomplished my main goal. That is a great feeling.

So whether my current partial leads to a full and (fingers crossed) leads to representation, it's not as important as what I've done write now. I wrote a novel from start to end, and I think it's good. I hope you get the chance to read it, and that you enjoy it too.

The Importance of a Name

THE TRIAD SOCIETY is a pre-steam punk fantasy. What does that mean? That means steam technology is in its early advances. I don't have airships or the like. I have steam-infused water and other similar "inventions!" Reliarach is the first kingdom on the Crescent Sea to develop such technology, the other six kingdoms being in the technological dark ages (a pun!). The king of Reliarach is Urban.

Urban.

The entire story is set in a city where this new technology and its resultant socio-economic impact is tearing everything apart. And I named the king Urban. I wanted to name the king Urban as soon as I decided that I would include a king in the story. Only after the fact did I think it was a cute nod toward the atmosphere I was developing. And after that, I never thought on it again.

Not until now. A beta reader commented that the name was like beating him over the head with the message. OH NO! I hate that. I do not like to be beat about the head or have my ears boxed or any other physical violence from messages. That leads to AYFKM moments!

So now I have to ponder and ponder hard. Is this one person's reaction or should I change the name. I really like King Urban, but at the same time, I will not beat my readers about the head with a name. Twould be akin to beating them with a fish, and no one likes that.

Trading at $1,365.00 an ounce

A good beta reader is worth his or her weight in gold. As of closing October 13, 2010, gold traded at $1,365 an ounce. An ounce is equal to 1/16 of a pound. (2.2 pounds equals 1 kilogram for you metric folks.) Assuming Elizabeth Poole weighs about 110 pounds (when she's soaking wet maybe), that means she's worth $2,204, 400.

Yesterday's exciting news is that an agent that appeared on the infamous List asked for sample pages from THE TRIAD SOCIETY. I wore myself out yesterday doing the Dance of Joy. But when I came to my senses, I realized I was unprepared! The thing is still in revision. It hasn't even gone to beta readers! I should email her and say sample pages will have to wait (this request came outside of the normal querying process as a result of the sample pitch paragraph submitted as part of the webinar I mentioned previously).

NO WAY!

I'm not waiting. This thing says I have seven days to submit the first 30-35 pages. They'll then take two months to review those pages. I can revise the first 30-35 pages in seven days (already finished first pass) and the remainder in two months. No problem. There's no reason to delay here. The thing will be done and polished before they (undoubtedly) ask for the full manuscript. I've revised 29/33 chapters already. Pretty much all I need is the beta read/revision. So if my beta readers can review the first 30 pages right now, this balls a rolling!

Sara Megibow has expressed her frustration at fantasy authors glutting the early chapters with world building. The reason I'm doing a second pass before beta? I'm worried I did the same thing. There are a few paragraphs in chapter one and a section in chapter two in particular that I think need to be moved or cut all together. Without saying any of this, I send the ms to Liz and she pings the EXACT chapters I was worried about AND the EXACT section I was worried about.

That's not just skill. That's peace of mind. Now I can skip worrying whether I was being overly strict with myself or risking this great opportunity by submitting something I was on the fence about (I liked the world building, but it mucked up the pacing a bit). Now I know. It wasn't me being hard on myself. It was me seeing a problem (not a glaring one, those are easy to pick out. The subtle ones are harder). I need to tool this stuff for the betterment of the story. I have confirmation. I have peace of mind. And that is invaluable.

Stuff Stolen from Other People

Eric at Pimp My Novel retweeted this blog post that has a great quote:

“An absolutely necessary part of a writer’s equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts on himself.” – Irwin Shaw

I'll try to keep that in mind next time the query process is thunder punching me in the junk.


Le R. at The Rejectionist posted a You Tube video sent to her by Maine Character. You will find value in what it has to say, so I repost it here for your edification.

Redux: There is No Such Thing as Writer's Block

Not quite sure why people are so much more willing to read blogger than live journal as one is just as easy as the other (other than displaying in reader, but we won't get into an RSS feed discussion). Anyway, because it has reared its ugly head again, I feel inclined to repost one of my earlier journal entries on writer's block. It doesn't exist. Stop making excuses.

I can't remember who the author was, someone I respected immensely at the time (Kurt Vonnegut Jr. perhaps?), but I read his opinions long long ago and to this day, I have found them mostly accurate. I say mostly because physical and psychological factors can also play a part in one's writing, so if you're exhausted, overly stressed, or in some other way not prepared to write, it may be frustrating if you're trying to push yourself through. Excluding such instances and focusing directly on writing (when you're in the proper state of self, when you should be writing), there is no such thing as writer's block.

I'll say it again, there's no such thing as writer's block. If you find yourself stuck, unable to move the story forward or unsure of where to go from where you are, you're not "blocked." You've made a mistake. Go back and review what you've written. Somewhere in there is a mistake. When you've corrected the mistake, the story will continue to progress normally. Thus, writing without mistakes will yield a fluid process from beginning to end. Granted, by fluid process, I don't mean that you'll write a publishable book on your first try. There's still revision and corrections to be made. But it's a serious mistake that stops a writer cold.

I have yet to discover this claim to be untrue.

But this is what I do!

I went to lunch across the street, diligently working on the revision of TTS (Otwald is about to meet Crown Princess Klara, which will require some serious scrubbing). The owner's wife brings out my food and sees me tapping away on my laptop.

"No more work," she says. "It's time to enjoy ourselves!"

I smiled and nodded, but really just wanted to reply, "This is how I enjoy myself."

This is what I do, lady.

A Ponderance: What do you think is back there?

My good online friend and beta reader, LurkerWithout works nights at a hotel. Having held this job myself, I understand his psychological pain. To pass the time, he will occasionally doodle and share those doodles with the masses. (That's you and me, in case you were wondering just who was amassed.) Today's offering is worth reposting, both for its humor, but in particular the fourth panel:



I love the angle of the door and the streaks that give it texture and make me feel like I'm looking at a door that's really there and really weird. But it's the question! The question demands an answer and my brain just starts turning.

What is behind the crooked door?

Is it a crooked world? Is it a world filled with optical illusions where everything is level, but based on its craft, everyone walks slanted in an attempt to maintain their balance? Or is it metaphorical? Is the world on that side the same as ours but crooked? Half-way between this world and the bizarro world, where everything seems normal until the twelve-foot tall white rabbit comes out of his pawn shop and beats the shit out of you because you were looking through the window too long. Don't fuck with the white rabbit. If you're looking you're buying else move along.

So move along you do, walking down a street like any other you might walk in New York at night, feeling dirtier than it really is because the air is stagnant and filled with exhaust. You turn in an alley because that's what one does when he feels like he's being followed and no matter where you go, you always feel like you're being followed inside the crooked door. That's where you meet Tommy the Rat, but he's not a squealer. Bobby the Hamster is, but Bobby the Hamster is Tommy's bitch and the hamster doesn't do anything without the rat's say so (unless you can get Bobby alone and buy him an orange soda, but since you don't have the peach pits to pay up, how are you going to get an orange soda?).

All you have is cloth money (as dollars are cloth not paper, so we really need to change that phrase) and that doesn't get you very far here. You need yourself some peach pits or people will think you're a chump.

Maybe you can turn a trick or two, but the corners are already full of fellas and their pimp looks like she can kick your ass. It doesn't much anyway cause the fellas are as broke as you. No one wants humans anymore. There's nothing finer than the foxes uptown. They don't have pimps. They have services with phone lines and operators. An hour with a fox costs more pits than you could make in a year turning tricks down on the corner, so just give that up and see if you can't pick up some day labor down by the docks.

When does the sun rise here?

A Ponderance: How to Steal from the Greeks

You may have noticed Nate Wilson appearing here and there in the comments section. He's a good bean. He's a bean you'd use in your award-winning chili. He has his own blog. If you have not read it, you should. The footnotes alone make it worthwhile. Recently, he posted an explanation of why the blog is named Sometimes, the Wheel is on Fire. This origin is wicked awesome. I immediately declared I would steal this from him and use it for a story. I pondered and I pondered and I pondered some more. But no matter how much I pondered, I could not come up with a story better than the original mythology. It's just cool. But it's not cool to just use the mythology as if it was something you came up with. If you can't play a tune and make it dance like a monkey, there's no reason to include it.

But today that monkey danced! The mistake I made was to look at new stories where the wheel could be used. Oh no, my friends, I should have been looking in stories I've already written. Or more precisely, the one I'm writing right now.

In JEHOVAH'S HITLIST, you don't get a lot of the resources you see today. No wood, no plastic. Most everything is fabric, recycled paper, or metal (mostly metal--aluminum or tin and the like). Each avenue is named for the 53 states and has three or four parks named for the larger cities in that state, the largest always being the capital city. These parks, lacking trees or vegetation of any kind, are a lot like your modern day skate parks and playgrounds. The problem is, the tinkers have already looted all the movable metal. Swing sets are barren, teater totters have nothing with which to teeter or totter. So you get these great big cement ramps and these concave bowls where if you run fast enough, it's like you're going sideways.

But what about the larger pieces of metal too heavy for the tinkers to haul away? What about those wheels where you run in a circle and then grab hold and go round and round?

So far, the punishment I've found for almost anything is death, and that's a bit extreme. There would have to be some method of punishment for minor infractions. The gangs aren't going to shoot you over every little thing. The deputies aren't going to string you up. You'd get beaten up or left out in the elements. But how? Circling a pursing and beating them is blah. No curb stomping or anything that extreme.

The wheel!

When Jehovah finally goes up above and to Ademi Dayo, the young woman he has to kill, the two talk about the differences of their worlds. Jehovah talks about how much trouble he got into when he was younger, always acting out. When you get in trouble, they tie you to the wheel and throw rocks at you.

How horrible!

Nah, not really. It could be a lot worse.

How could anything be worse than that?

Sometimes, the wheel is on fire.

BAM!

Idea stolen and assimilated. Boo. Yah.

Beware the AYFKM, My Son

There are plenty of reasons a person may stop reading your book at the beginning: overwriting, underwriting, rehashed plots or story elements, a disconnection with the protagonist. I can't even list the number of books I've picked up and put back down before the end of chapter 1 (it's a long list). That's the important part. I can't list them. I don't even remember most of them. Those books are discarded from my memory as not worth remembering or filed into the "not right for me" category. The worst that happens when someone starts to read and dislikes your story is that they stop. They might go so far as to comment that they did not enjoy the story when the subject matter comes up. Sure it stings and you want all the readers you can get, but in the grand scheme of things, much worse things can happen.

Like the AYFKM--the Are You Fucking Kidding Me moment. This is so much more dangerous than a person giving up after page two. The AYFKM happens much later in the book. The reader has invested time and money, but more importantly has invested in the story. He or she cares for what's happening, cares for the characters and the outcome. There is something at stake. Then you hammer the square peg into the round hole and that whole investiture comes apart. You shat on their feelings with your plot decision and there are consequences for your action.

AYFKM Level One
The reader immediately stops reading the book. They then seek out others to vent their frustrations, say like a blog post. ;) They're not waiting for conversation. They're starting the conversation. This isn't the same as weighing in with a "yeah, I just didn't like xxx main character, so I never read the series." This is "I was reading xxx and yyy happened. Are you fucking kidding me?!?!"

AYFKM Level Two
The reader immediately stops reading the book and refuses to buy any more books in the series (or possibly no books by you ever again). They actively begin conversations, but rather than voicing their frustration, they tell people that the entire experience is a waste of time. Stay away from this series. The author completely ruins everything that came before it (*cough*HPbook7*cough*). If you're lucky, this person may read the back cover copy for your next series, but as far as this one goes, it's dead in the water, and they're going to try to sink it with everyone they know too.

AYFKM Level Three
This is where all the bells and whistles go off. The torpedo is in the water and the submarine has to dive before everyone on board is killed. You didn't just waste their time, you hurt them on a personal level. For whatever reason, the bond they established with your story/character was an intense emotional investiture, and you just gave them a golden shower. You have made yourself an internet enemy. Nothing you ever write will ever earn you forgiveness. They will hunt you across the internet and make you pay. They will troll your blogs, spoil your Twitter hashtag conversations, and even show up at conventions to tell you how much they hate you. Nothing breads entitlement like an open mic and anonymity (aka, the internet), and you're about to suffer the worst of it. And you deserve it (or so they think).


And the real trick is, beneath all this self-assured rage, the person has a point. There is quite possibly, a fundamental flaw in the event that set them off. Too often an author will bend the plot to accommodate a personal desire/whim at the expense of immersion/realism. I know writers who decide what the beginning and end are going to be, what they want the plot to be, and they'll beat the story as hard as they must to move it from point A to point B.

I had a level one AYFKM moment this evening, that I will put behind the cut because it includes spoilers.

I've arrived at Lowell, reading BLUE FIRE all the way home. I have 20 pages left in the entire book and I'm at the tail end of the climax. Rather than driving home and finishing it there, I head up to my car in the parking lot and continue reading. I am that invested. We're not going anywhere until those last 20 pages are accounted for.

The big bad is defeated (for this book at least), the mysterious machine is going haywire, and the big damn hero has to make a run for it. Using the BDH's unique powers, the MM has killed people, disintegrated objects, and is destroying the BB's palace all around them. Walls and floors and ceilings are crumbling. RUN!

The BDH takes two survivors with her (as BDHs are wont to do). They run through the palace, walls exploding around them and the roof about to collapse on their heads. And just when they reach the door to the outside world, to freedom, to survival, one of the rescuees stops them. You see, using the BDH's unique power, the MM disintegrated her clothes. He stops them--INSIDE--and gives her his tunic lest she go outside naked.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

A palace. Not a shack. Not a shanty. A motherfucking palace is about to fall on top of you, and you're going to stop and put on a skirt?

Let me guarantee you, if I was naked and fleeing a crumbling palace, the world would see my swinging cod before I stopped to put on a pair of shorts and give that building one last chance to drop a rock on my skull.

And it's a palace. Why didn't they stop outside the building on the grounds? What palace doesn't have grounds? You already described how long the walk was. There have to be grounds.

I loved this book. I devoured it. I got it yesterday and was 20 pages away from finishing it today (and I read slow). As soon as that happened, I turned off my nook and came home.

I have since finished the book and the ending is of a satisfactory nature that I will buy the third. As a result of the AYFKM moment occurring so close to the end of the book, my enthusiasm for the next installment is considerably depreciated. Time will heal this, of course, but where I was champing at the bit for book 2, book 3 can take its time.

How many people did the BDH kill in this book (middle grade my ass)? But she can't go outside naked. This is a pervading fact of American fiction (both in text and in screen) and it is incredibly stupid.

Frenetic

I have stopped revising so I can read BLUE FIRE. I haven't opened my computer since Monday evening. This isn't too bad because I should finish the book by tomorrow. It's not a long-term delay or anything. And reading a good book is a great way to recharge one's batteries. Keep the juices flowing and the ideas fresh. Flowing juice can be difficult to handle, though. Fresh ideas just pop out of your head and demand to be put to paper (or in my case, screen). I've had some new ideas for THE SEVENTH SACRIFICE (and I still want to get to the end because I love it so much. I had a HUGE breakthrough for JEHOVAH'S HITLIST that requires I write another 30,000 words before I even get to it. I have some corrections I need to make to THE TRIAD SOCIETY once I start revising again--of course those come at the end as well, so I need to get that back in gear. I've even been having ideas for WINE AND VINEGAR, which I had forgotten about until I found the manuscript file the other day.

I feel absolutely frenetic inside. I'm really enjoying the book, and I want to finish it. But all these ideas! They demand attention! They demand appeasement! And the worst of it is, once I finish the book, I will still only work on one of them at a time. I'll need to finish revising TTS so I can send it out to beta readers so I can go back to JH and finish that first draft. Then when I set that aside, I can start back on T7S, which I'm effectively starting from scratch and aborting my previous attempt. So IF (and that's an all caps IF) I write WINE AND VINEGAR directly after T7S, that won't be until this time next year at the earliest.

GAH! Too much juice! Too much juice!!!

BLUE FIRE, Writing to Age, and the Agency Model for eBooks

 BLUE FIRE by Janice Hardy released today. Some how, I switched the 10 and the 5 and thought it wasn't coming out until Friday even though new books come out on Tuesdays. I are dumb. So I get an email while riding the train into work saying the download is available. I turn on my nook's wifi to see if there's a signal on the train. There is. And I promptly download the new book, setting aside the two other books I'm still in the midst of completing (those being ROSEMARY AND RUE and JULIET). As a personal note, this is the first ebook I've ever pre-ordered.

I was introduced to Janice's first novel, THE SHIFTER, through Kristin Nelson's blog when she discussed the challenges of titles. (THE SHIFTER was originally titled THE PAIN MERCHANTS, which is a much cooler title but was thought it might inhibit the target market from buying this title.) Kristin being an agent I want to work with, I have looked over all the fantasy novels she has sold so far. Now, I'm a bit finicky in my fantasy tastes. If you give your main character a "cool name," it's an immediate turn off. This was the first of Kristin's fantasy novels that piqued my interest.

I actually passed on it the first time, though. Then she did a second blog post where she posted first pages. She was illustrating how important first pages were and how little Janice's first pages changed from what she sent as part of her query and what they submitted to publishers in an attempt to make the sale. They were very similar, almost identical. (Hence, first pages are important. But then, so are the rest of them. :) Reading the first pages, I felt like it was a book worth buying. Two days later, I had finished the entire thing. I read it again about six months later. It's a short but solid work. I am glad that the second novel came out when promised and not fallen into the sophomore slump of coming out years after the initial success.

What really shocked me about this series is that Kristin called it Middle Grade. Wow, really? It has a young protagonist, absent sexuality (other than young infatuation) or profanity, and most violence is threat more than execution. And it has a short word count. But still, Middle Grade? I would have assumed YA (sure, the line between the two isn't as distinct as between genres, but I don't usually read YA and I never read MG--I thought--so this came as a shocker to me).

I have one young-reader's story. Without it being finished, I don't know it's classification. MG is kind of new, really. Everything else I write is most certainly adult. I have graphic violence, profanity, sexuality, and all used (I think) in a manner appropriate to the work. Could I take it out? Could Otwald, aged 18, be the star of a YA TRIAD SOCIETY rather than the adult fantasy as I've written it? Until today, I never even considered it. I don't write YA. I have no interest in writing YA (with the exception of HOUSE ON SANDWICH NOTCH LANE). But "The Healing Wars" is a solid story that never seemed "young" to me. It's well written and an immersive setting. I have no qualms reading it. But writing it..?

I don't know, man. I just don't know. That's really the point of this post. Most of the time I just think of YA as the genre every agent and her sister reps when there are less than 30 agents remaining that accept submissions for adult (non-urban) fantasy. Now, let me be clear, I'm not pondering this to possibly expand my available agent pool. I'm just pondering on the state of adult fantasy all together. Between YA and Urban Fantasy, the genre is much diminished.

One last thing to note about BLUE FIRE. I bought it for $9.99. I bought so many more books last year before the agency model was implemented with ebooks. I was buying them left and right. Now that they're being priced $5 higher, I won't buy them. This makes me sad. A lot. There have been a number of books I wanted to buy that were priced too high.

The Selby Invitational

If you've browsed my website (and specifically the Inkwell), you will have noticed that I've done some work with D&D. I love me some role playing games. RPG play is highly regionalized. There is a reason D&D was born in Wisconsin. The epicenter of fanatical role-playing is the Midwest. Sure there are groups out here on the East Coast, but nothing like back there. It's just all over the place.

So, my favorite and most prevalent hobby took a bit of a hit when I moved from Missouri to New Hampshire. Role playing out here? I've had a little bit here and there, but nothing like when I lived in St. Louis (and if I had gone to Kansas City, good lord, that would have been endless RPGing).

When I first moved out here, my girlfriend-now-wife was still back in St. Louis. She didn't come out for another month and a half. She was looking for various things she could do to introduce and acclimate herself to her new home. Among the list was meetup.com. She found a board game night hosted at a local Borders just a block and a half from our apartment. She suggested I go and scope it out for us. I like board games. My friend Luke had introduced me to such exciting games as Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride (I had only previously been exposed to lame games like Monopoly). This could be awesome! But I expected it to be three or four losers who got together and played a game once a week.

Boy was I wrong. RPGs:Midwest::Board Games:Northeast. Wow! Twenty people showed up that night! There was ticket to ride, settlers, carcasonne, and a bunch of others I had never heard of. I knew Germany made board games, but do they do anything else? Most of my friends out here I met at board game night. It has been a great experience. Mondays have moved to the Holiday Inn as Borders slowly dies. 35 people show up every Monday where we play Thurn and Taxis, Imperial, Brass, Quirkle, Small World, Ra, Dog, Tichu, and so many others.

Now, once a quarter, Jen and I like to host our closest friends at our home for a seasonal meal, get together, board game party. Today is our quarterly Selby Invitational! There will be do-it-yourself nachos, chicken chili, rice krispy treats, hot apple cider, root/beer, seasonal coffees, and games games games. Telestrations, Cyclades, Conan, Quirkle Cubed, Trigon, and on and on and on. And it will be the first time in our new home! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Jen loves to host people. I love to play games. We both love food! This is going to be a good day.

REVISIOOOOON! REVISION.

I love revision. My love for revision is inversely equivalent to my love for writing queries. When I get into a groove on revising, the words to "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof change to "Revision," and I hear the chorus shouting it over and over in my head.

I'm 1/3 of the way through TTS, and I am in such a good mood. Why? Well for one, if I'm revising, that means I have a finished manuscript. It always feels good to finish a novel. But more importantly, I'm taking what is most assuredly a crappy draft and making it awesome. I'm still concerned there might be too much world building in the first two chapters, but I just finished chapter 11 and am totally jazzed. I've really tightened a lot of stuff that was loose before and the whole progression of events is solid. I'm enjoying this story as a reader not just a writer, and that's always a good sign. Really, I think it's the best sign. If you would sit down and read your work for the sake of reading it, then you've written something you truly enjoy for its own merits and not just the obligatory sense of accomplishment.

And not to toot my own horn, but that first chapter I wrote where Otwald first goes to the Triad Society? Holy hell, that was some good world building. I'm mean, damn fine. Sometimes I really do feel like I have the skill to not only succeed at all this, but to be awesome at it.

Fingers crossed that holds true for when this goes out to beta readers. LurkerWithout didn't like WANTED, and I value his opinion as a reader. He reads a billion books a month, so if he likes it, that carries weight with me.