Fertilizer

On Moving Soon

2012-02-10T10:12:00.001-08:00

In less then seven days, my entire house needs to be packed and ready to move cross country.

AHHHHHHHH!

On Revisions and New Stories

2012-02-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

So I've started on the revision schedule that I had planned for February. The fact that I'm moving in less than two weeks has kind of complicated things, but not too badly. The plan is to do a quick readthrough of Badger, mainly to remove characters that shouldn't be in some of the scenes, refine some of the relationships, and organize the whole book a bit better. That part of the effort has gone well so far, and I am happy to say that I think I will finish that pretty soon.

Revision plan number two is to move on to Murders once Badger is done. Murders needs a pretty similar treatment, with a few more detailed revisions to iron out some of the inconsistencies. My hope is to finish that by the end of the month so that I can dive into a revision of Iron Angels after that.

As far as new stories, I've started Social Contract now in earnest. I guess a lot of my obstacles in that story had to do with what kind of a story the book was turning out to be. It's very hard to write a book that touches on societal conditions and politics without turning preachy, and the initial sections of the story seemed to be headed in that direction. After a few weeks of writer's block and a lot of pondering, I think I've got the direction of the story figured out, though, so hopefully I can dive right into the meat of things! My goal on that one is to have the first draft done by the end of March, so that I can start on Eagle, the third Jacob Hull book.

That's the plan for now, at least. I'm sure the move will require some...adaptations...but I remain confident that I can get all of this done on time. After that, it should be a pretty straight shot from here to the beginning of May, when Iron Angels will launch, and after that I just have Badger and Murders to get up in the summer and fall respectively. Meanwhile, I need to be working on the novels that will hopefully be ready to launch through 2013, namely Social Contract, Eagle, Airships Over London, and Iron Angels 2.

Sigh. When did the hours of the day get to be so few...

On A Bit of a Change

2012-02-04T11:48:00.000-08:00

So, yeah. In two weeks we will be moving from Texas to Pennsylvania. We did not know this fact two days ago.

You see, I had been interviewing at a company in Pennsylvania. Friday morning they called and told me we got the job! We kind of start fairly quickly there though, so a crazy rush to move is now in order. We need to find a new apartment, organize our exodus, hopefully find a new renter for our apartment lease, pack our stuff, figure out how to get two cars to a state thousands of miles away with a baby in tow... You kind of get the idea.

At the same time, I'm trying to support writing and all that. I had even worked out a schedule on what I was going to revise and write over the next two months or so. :( My best laid plans may get waylaid a bit, but the best part about this new job will be the fact that it will give me more time to write and a much shorter commute. So hopefully that will go a long way to making up for the lost time in the next couple of weeks.

So both excited and nervous about the change. Wish us luck, and I will see you around!

On Progress and Cover Art

2012-02-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

So Kingsley is off and running! It's doing well for now, but I am hoping that it starts to rev up and reach the level of success that Wolfhound continues to enjoy. I just need to find the mental energy and time to promote it a little bit more and I think it will catch on pretty well.

So on another topic, we have the cover art for Iron Angels! James Curwen was kind enough to provide the artwork, and he has done a wonderful job. Go check out his other work, and I highly recommend him to other authors looking for covers! He's great. Now I just have to revise the book itself until it has similar quality... At least I have until May this time! See you around!

On A New One Up!

2012-01-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

So The True Adventures of Hector Kingsley will now be up on Amazon! Just a few hours for Amazon to review it, and it will go live. That makes book two of this little publishing effort, and book one of the year 2012. I'm just hoping that the story manages to shine as much as Wolfhound has. Hopefully those little voices murmuring at me that it will all end in failure can shut up now. Blergh.

In any case, go read the book! We will be getting more versions up today and tomorrow. See you around!

On Delicious Treachery

2012-01-26T09:47:00.000-08:00

So the past couple of weeks I've kind of been struggling with some health issues. Eating was difficult, I kept getting chills and shivers, and I was generally weak. Acid reflux seemed to be a major problem as well. I figured it was just a flu at first, then I kind of started to worry as it continued to last. I lost a little weight and started to get a little desperate to find something my throat would tolerate. I won't lie, I was kind of starting to worry that I was on the edge of a major mental breakdown over stress or something. Or maybe that something incredibly serious was wrong with me.

No, it was not stress, nor was it disease. It was poison!

You see, in my family we have this weird hereditary trait that makes all the males develop food allergies in their twenties. That means we could be eating food that's never hurt us before, such as avocado, and all of a sudden our throat swells up. Once we figured that out, we've kind of been tracking my dad's allergies and avoiding them preemptively, just to avoid the problems he's had. These include cats, avocado, tree nuts, apple skins and a few other things.

We had wondered if my problems lay in my allergies, but we couldn't figure out what I was eating every day that would cause the issue. Guacomole has been banned, I don't eat apples fresh anymore, and I don't eat cats (though that does sound delicious). And its not like I was chomping down on a brazil nut every afternoon. So we gave up on that idea.

Which is why it wasn't until yesterday, after I had an attack of cold sweats and sudden weakness, that I checked the packaging of the granola bars I've been taking to work. You know, the ones I've eaten at work as a snack or a side for my dinner for nearly two years. Guess what they have in them? That's right. 'May contain traces of tree nuts.' So now I can confirm I've got that allergy. Believe me, I've been poisoning myself with it for the past two weeks, and the symptoms are nothing I want to go through ever again. Blergh.

Treacherous little nut-filled granola bars. Why couldn't you have stayed loyal? Mutter mutter, ungrateful hippy food mutter mutter...

On Relief

2012-01-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

There is nothing better than finishing the copy edit of a book. Kingsley's ready for the final readthrough, and that's more about enjoying the story and the tone and all. Maybe another week and the madness will be over.

Relaxing sighs on three, two, one...

Ahhhhh...

On Initial Obstacles and a New Interview

2012-01-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

So for the past three weeks or so I've been trying to get the beginning of Social Contract written. I say trying because it seems like I keep running into some kind of mental block.

It's hard to figure out why that is at the moment. Maybe with Wolfhound's success, I'm a bit worried about branching out into another type of story. Like I won't be able to duplicate my success if I don't stick with the same formula. Or maybe I'm just juggling too many projects again; between the Kingsley copy edit, somes revisions on other stuff and the emergency room, I don't seem to have a lot of time to spare. Another possibility is that I've simply exhausted myself again. I wrote four books in thirty nine weeks last year, and that kind of a pace can leave a mark. Maybe I just need to slow down? Or maybe this is going to turn out like another New Realm, and I'll have to cut my losses. Then again, I always have trouble with beginnings, so...

Dilemmas like these seem to be part of a writing career. Sometimes the problems and obstacles aren't as cut and dried as they would be in another career. As I continue to write, though, I think I will get better at identifying them and resolving them. For now, I think I just have a bit too much on my plate, mixed in with a bit of plain old fatigue. My focus is going to shift a little so that I can clear some of that away. Then maybe I can return my progress on new words to my usual, semi-berserk pace.

Oh! Also, I have an interview up! It is over at Sarah M Eden's blog. It was a lot of fun to do that one, and I hope you enjoy it too. In any case, I have just two chapters left to revise and Kingsley will be ready. Come on, focus...

On the First Ammendment: SOPA

2012-01-18T08:23:00.000-08:00

So Hollywood wanted Congress to help stop online piracy of videos they made. They wanted Chinese websites and the like to not post the movies they'd spent millions creating. The obvious solution is to lobby Congress to get a new law passed, right?

And in true Hollywood tradition, that law calls for the establishment of a blacklist for websites that illegally use copyrighted material. The copyright holders--or, by pure coincidence I'm sure, the Attorney General--could obtain a court order to basically attempt to wipe these sites from search results and domain names worldwide. There are also provisions for holding search providers and other companies liable for assisting the sites which are in violation.

While I am all in favor of copyright law--as a writer who plans on making a career out of his copyrights, how could I not be--this is freaking insane. How this law couldn't be horribly abused straight from the outset is a mystery to me. False accusations could mean retaliatory suits against the people who shut down non-violation sites, but what if that person was the Attorney General? You know, the one who participated in arms smuggling recently and still hasn't even been indicted? Or what if the small business site is simply unable to raise the funds to make a case for itself? Do they get to claim reparations for their lost business? What happens if a business hires someone to post copyrighted material to a competitor's website, and then reports it to SOPA? Is there a difference between the use of a single uncited photograph, and the streaming of a whole movie? What if, perish the thought, the Attorney General is politically motivated in which sites he blocks, and targets opposing political sites, or sites for businesses which contribute to his opponents?

The worst part is how incredibly ignorant the members of Congress seem to be about this whole thing. At the hearing discussing the bill, it seems like absolutely no one was actually qualified to discuss Internet filtering, and the broad base of opponents to the law were generally excluded. The opposition to SOPA comes from virtually the entire political spectrum, from Tea Partiers to Politico. Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and other web based companies have taken a stance against this abuse of governmental power, to the point where some of them have blacked out their sites in protest today.

This bill, and a similar one called PIPA, are complete and total violations of everything the Constitution and the Bill of Rights sought to provide us with. If the bill sought to provide an opportunity for the Attorney General to burn a printing press accused of printing things in violation of copyright law, or shut down a newspaper accused of sedition or copyright violation, the reaction would be the same, because the abuses would be pretty much the same. I sympathize with Hollywood--you guys spend a lot of time and money to create entertainment for the world, and having it stolen by people and posted on the web has to be devastating. The fact that things like Twitter and Facebook have started to effect and change your industry can't be comfortable either. The fact is, though, that this bill is a disaster that will not help the situation, and even if it was effective, the cost to free speech and the abuses it would make possible for government and business officials would be too high.

In short, kill this bill. Kill it with fire and never look back.

Thus concludes the political rant. Will get back to more interesting things on Friday. See ya!

Blacked out Google image provided by, well...Google.

On Changing Focus

2012-01-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I promised myself I wouldn't talk about how well Wolfhound is doing with this post--something about beating a dead horse, I think--so I will confine my comments on that book to a single word.

Squeeeeeeeeee!

There, now that I've got that off my chest...

The copy edit of The True Adventures of Hector Kingsley is going well. The plan is to finish that edit by this Thursday or Friday, and then go back and do the final readthrough next week. That would give us about half a week or so to get the formatting everywhere all set up, so that hopefully we can just put it all at once instead of going at it piecemeal. The book should be out by February 1st, with the sample chapters up here a little bit before that. It would be a major relief to just have it up and done now, but I believe the book deserves just as careful a look as Wolfhound did, and I really want Kingsley to have his time to shine. Jacob certainly has...

Fortunately, my editor, Tristi Pinkston, has given me a lot of help in that area. The work by Bob Ennis on the cover art certainly doesn't hurt either.

It's just really hard not to focus on the numbers for Wolfhound the whole time. Checking the sales numbers like fifty times a day probably won't change anything, but it makes me feel like I am. So I need to put a stop to that and change my focus to what needs to be done. Wish me luck...

On A Turning Point

2012-01-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

So, Wolfhound has been doing pretty well lately.

To be honest, that's kind of an understatement. December was about twice as profitable as we had expected, and as of right now, we've already passed the dancing-in-the-street threshold for January. We've gotten six different reviews from people with really positive comments, which is always encouraging, and made it pretty solidly onto three of Amazon's bestseller list categories which will probably help us continue to sell. Plus, we've even managed to put together the Smashwords version of the book! The one thing we haven't been able to deal with has been advertising--I've been so busy trying to keep my writing schedule that ads and stuff have taken kind of a low priority over writing itself--but I guess that can be expected when I've got a full time job to worry about and a family to help. Hopefully at a future date I can make the whole ad thing work, but for now we are doing good!

I suppose that in a lot of ways we've now reached a turning point because as of now, Wolfhound has repaid our initial investment in the book. The copy edit and everything else is now paid for. Anything we make from here on forward is pure profit. On top of that, we've managed not to just rest on our laurels. We're now about to publish a second book, which might possibly grow just as fast as the first one did, which means that in a couple of months they might be both paid back. We've become profitable as a small business! I didn't expect to reach that point until next year. It's incredible.

Of course, this means we're going to have to adjust our expectations going forward. My standards of success have been kind of inflated, and I'm wondering if that means I'm going to face a few disappointments later on. Still, it will be worth it to see this opportunity go forward. What's life without a little risk, right?

I just want to thank you guys for all of your support. It's been a great ride so far, and it's only going to get better from here! See you around.

On Decisions

2012-01-11T12:59:00.000-08:00

Alright! So the excerpt is now done for the first book of Kingsley. Now I have a small choice of projects that I should work on next. I can either launch myself into the copy edit of Hector Kingsley, or I can do the revisions on Edawku.

Hmmm. I'm already a little bit in the Kingsley mindset, and it would be a relief to get some of that out of the way before the end of the week. Maybe just the three first chapters so that they can be ready for the sample?

But wait, what is this? Megan has already finished the alpha read on Iron Angels! That puts my two month dawdling on her story to shame. Bitter, eternal shame. How could I not read through her book now?

Man, there are just never enough hours in a week...

On Keeping Perspective

2012-01-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

So the book thing is really moving forward! We're kind of shocked at how well Wolfhound seems to be doing, and we've already gotten two more positive reviews. It's been great seeing what people have enjoyed about the story, and I'm kind of looking forward to that kind of feedback in the future. Something I could get used to! :)

We've even been selling a few copies of Killer as well. For those who don't remember, Killer is the short story I wrote and entered in the Mayhew Short Story Contest at BYU. It did pretty well there, but it hasn't sold a lot on Amazon while it's been up. I guess some of Wolfhound's success is pulling it along though, which is kind of fun. We'll have to see what happens with both of them once Kingsley's first book goes up!

While that's been going on, I've been readjusting to going back to work in the ER, getting far too little sleep, and frantically trying to juggle writing projects. Between writing the Kingsley extras, writing the new material for Social Contract, getting ready to do the final revisions on Kingsley and a bunch of other stuff, I'm going kinda crazy. The fact that I keep obsessively checking Amazon to see if I'm failing yet doesn't help. :P

At the same time, I've needed some help to keep things in perspective. Luckily the other day I got to take my daughter on a walk. We just wandered around the bike paths near our apartment and visited a local park for a while. It was lot of fun to watch her experience the world; just grabbing a leaf and playing with it was like a wonder to her. Seeing the world through her eyes and being able to enjoy those little moments reminded me of simple and straightforward life can be, and how important it is to just sit back and take a breath of fresh air. Otherwise we get lost in the mess of things, and that's no good for anyone, least of all us.

So that's my rambling report for the moment. Hope all is going well for you guys! See you around

On the Roller Coaster

2012-01-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it's definitely been up and down these past few days.

My book has been selling really well! In fact, we're doing well enough that it's kind of inspired a paranoia level paradox in me. Am I just building my hopes up to be brought down hard later on? Will a bunch of the new readers decide it sucks now and one-star review me? Maybe it's all just a government conspiracy meant to lull me into complacence? (You can tell I've been writing cyberpunk, huh?) I am excited and uncertain and jumping up and down over this success in something I've dreamed of forever. It's kind of like a dog actually catching a car they've been chasing for years. What do I do with it now?

On the other end, somebody found a typo. Left an extra word in that needed to be removed. Crud. At least it is only one in like 120k words right? I just need to change that up.

Also, had a wonderful interview today that should be going up on the 20th. I will post the link when it does. Look forward to it.

I've been able to start work on the bonus material for Kingsley, and I am enjoying it immensely. For those not in the loop, I've decided that people who buy the hardback and paperback versions of Kingsley will get an extra little bonus at the back of the book, mostly as a reward for buying the more expensive version. My wife has been reading it over my shoulder and I've won a few appreciative head scratches, so it should work out well!

Also, I've been plugging away at Social Contract. Somehow all the success that Wolfhound is enjoying has put a lot of pressure on me to not screw up the new book. That stress is relatively frustrating at this point, because every first draft has giant gaping holes in it that need to be resolved. I should be worrying more about how to set up the setting and lay groundwork for the future character development, but then the realization that people are going to expect a good story out of me now intrudes. Grg.

Yeah, you can see how chaotic things have been. My own private little roller coaster. So far it is turning out to be a fun ride though, so I can't complain. Hope everyone is doing alright out there, and as always, thank you for your support. See you around!

On Bleh

2012-01-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

You never realize exactly how much you are on the internet until your modem dies and you suddenly don't have the internet to be on. :(

Fortunately we were able to fix that problem fairly quickly, which is why I once again have a steady, glorious connection to the interwebs. All the better to obsessively check on Amazon with.

Speaking of which, we got another review! And it was another good one! Sales for Wolfhound are still going fairly well; I've been impressed with how the book is doing, and I've come to the conclusion that December and January are golden times for a new book. If things keep going like this, then Wolfhound will have paid itself back easily. That sort of early success definitely does wonders for my self confidence.

Of course, now the more neurotic half of my brain is chipping away at that confidence by making me worry that I will let these people down with my next book. All of a sudden I have expectations to live up to, and that was an unexpected burst of stress to deal with. At least Iron Angels is now out, Social Contract has been started (Mwahahaha!) and I have a few days to pound away at Edawku before I dig into the Hector Kingsley copy edit. No pressure though. Right?

Right?

On A Good Start

2012-01-02T09:45:00.000-08:00

So here we are in 2012. Has the apocalypse started yet?

Wolfhound has been out for almost a full month, and I have to say we've been doing pretty well! The book has officially hit the "good job" mark and kept going strong, though I don't think I will post actual sale numbers here. Pride goeth before the fall and all that. :) We've also got a review up, which was pretty positive and very encouraging. I had been getting a little worried as to why we hadn't got any before then, but I guess people were just taking some time to get through it. I just want to meet those expectations in the sequel!

Iron Angels is pretty near the completion of the next draft, with a bunch of helpful alpha readers set up. That's always nice to have, especially since I suspect the schedule for that book is going to be cutting it a little close. My goal is to have it ready by tomorrow and out to the readers as soon as my fingers can hit the keys. Wish me luck!

The final copy edit of The True Adventures of Hector Kingsley has been delievered! That means that my next project, outside of doing an alpha read, will be to revise that book and get it ready for publication in early February. I'm getting both excited and nervous about it, but I think it will do at least as well as Wolfhound, if not better!

In any case, I suppose I should get back to work, shouldn't I? Hope all is going well for everyone, and I will see you later!

On the End of 2011

2011-12-31T09:15:00.000-08:00

Well, somehow we've made it all the way through 2011, and man has it been an interesting year. As seems to be traditional, I will spend this last post of December as a way to run through some of the major events and accomplishments that marked my life this year and express gratitude for the opportunity to have them. None of these things came free, but they are each definitely worth it.

First among them was the birth of my first daughter, Sera. She has been a wonderful blessing to my life, and I have been able to get to know this wonderful little being as she has grown up. So far, she doesn't seem to mind me, which is always a plus; hopefully that continues in 2012!

Second, I managed to start a writing career! Wolfhound was published in December, and has already sold a fairly decent amount. Besides that, I've managed to write over 340k new words in four different novels. Now I have a revision schedule that says I will publish each of those four novels in 2012, while writing four more to follow them up. It has literally been a miracle for me to be able to pursue that dream, and I think I've done rather well getting four rough drafts written in a single year. The revising has gone pretty well too, and I have high hopes to be able to continue the process in the coming months. We shall see if my abilities meet my expectations of course, but so far I think we are doing pretty well.

Third, I finally outgifted my wife for Christmas! Mwahahaha! It took me about four years to put that accomplishment together, but I managed it. Okay, it's kind of a small victory, but I say that it was totally awesome, so there. :P We've also been able to keep the writing group going for over a year now, and I've officially been working full time at the emergency room for over a year as well. We've been able to move forward in a lot of ways, and that has me looking forward to what we can accomplish together in the future. Thanks to everyone for all of your help, support, and love, and I hope that you are all celebrating the accomplishments in your own life and looking forward to the dawn of a new year.

So there's the year in very, very brief terms. Here's hoping that after all the trials and obstacles, all the work and the struggle, we can keep moving forward in the coming year. Thanks again for all of your help, and I will see you in 2012!

On Politics and Cyberpunk

2011-12-29T12:24:00.000-08:00

One thing that I've always tended to avoid was the blatant introduction of political viewpoints into my books. I've always believed that including a clumsily worded or demonstrated political message would just outrage people and drive them away from what otherwise would have been a good story. So I've avoided that, and so far that rule has been rather good for me. It's kept me from making preachy stories that nobody likes, and I appreciate that kind of help. :)

With cyberpunk, though, it seems like the genre is heavily invested in having at least one political message, no matter what that message might be. Somehow, the cyberpunk genre has not only included a lot of stories dealing with politics and political viewpoints, but has also avoided becoming preachy or overly simplistic with it. Or at least that is my perception of the whole thing, from my narrow view of it.

Perhaps it is the equally dogged insistance of the genre on allowing things to be messy and complicated which prevents the preachiness from happening. Or maybe it is the omnipresence of some crazy world-spanning conspiracy elements. It is something I'm going to have to adjust to as I write this next book, and one that I might be a little uncomfortable with, honestly. But then again, a good writer stretches their limits right? I suppose my alpha readers and writing group will just have to let me know when I've messed it up and when it works well.

Well, enough rambling pondering. Time to write! Iron Angels isn't going to revise itself after all! See you around.

On Another Draft Done

2011-12-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

So as of yesterday, the first draft of Murders in Whitechapel has been finished. The overall story still needs a bit of work, but I think that people who like the first book will enjoy this one as well. I certainly enjoyed writing it; now I just need to get to work on the revisions on it.

In other news, I now get to work on The Social Contract! That book will probably occupy me for the first few months of 2012, and I am so excited about it. The various elements of the story are going to be pretty cool, and it will be a very different kind of story. At the same time I'm going to be revising a book for a friend called Edawkuh, (Yes, I will get to it, Megan) and hopefully finishing up an alpha rewrite of Iron Angels before the week is up. So yeah, even on break I still plan to be pretty busy. :)

In any case, the completion of the last book of the year calls for a celebration of sorts, so I'm going to give you guys the back cover of the paperback/hardcover version of The True Adventures of Hector Kingsley, courtesy of Mr. Ennis once again. See you around, and happy holidays!

On Christmas

2011-12-22T10:05:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! This week we will be heading home to visit family. It's been a while since we have been able to take time off (I think my last break was sometime in June, to give you some perspective on that) and it will be a welcome opportunity to reconnect with people who are way too far away.

I hope that all of you are also near family, or that they are at the very least close to your hearts. Have a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. See you around!

On Rudeness and Indie Publishing

2011-12-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

So this post might take me close to involving myself in the big, artificial indie versus traditional publishing dispute, something that I have previously taken great pains to avoid. I have no problems with either route in publishing, and would gladly accept benefits and opportunities from both sides of the debate (my main reasoning for my current course has more to do with economics and time limits than it does with team spirit, let's say), and so I hope you readers will not mind if I approach the topic carefully.

I was browsing the Amazon forums the other day, mostly because I saw a thread asking for good sci fi titles to read for a beginning reader. I was planning on contributing and mentioning some of my favorite authors in sci fi--Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, Jack Campbell, even David Weber if they wanted to risk some of the "harder" sci fi out there. I was also, truth be told, hoping to mention my own novel as a sidenote, since while Wolfhound is doing well, it never hurts to get your work out in front of more people.

To my dismay, the thread was repeatedly marked by people outraged that indie authors were recommmending their own work. Their condescending treatment of those authors was only matched by the smug sense of satisfaction that Amazon had decided to create a self promotion thread for indie authors and limit all self promotion posts to that thread alone. Anything outside the thread will be deleted by Amazon moderators. One commentor took great pains to say that it was "rude" for indie authors to promote their work, and that he was excused for taking them to task for it.

I have to admit that comment irked me, and not only because it betrayed a critical ignorance in how publishing of any stripe--or, well, any kind of business at all--works. Any author has to self promote, be they traditionally published authors doing book signings in stores or an indie author putting ads up on websites. It's a part of the business, and one that you need to be willing to do in order to live off of your work. If you love writing, and if you want people to love your work too, you will need to stand up for it.

In fact that's true of any business, which is something that Amazon well understands. I know they do because after reading the thread I had to delete yet another spam email that they had sent me promoting their products. They send me one every other day or so, and you know what? I don't mind. Because while most of the stuff doesn't appeal to me, sometimes I want their stuff! I like buying from Amazon, and I don't object to sifting through the rest to find what I like. For Amazon to deny indie authors the same opportunity to promote themselves seems to be the type of special hypocrisy that only a large bureacracy can produce, usually to their detriment. Especially in this case.

Aside from the sheer lack of understanding those commments had protrayed, I was disturbed by the attitude that indie authors were somehow being rude. That they had somehow interrupted the delicate waltz of society with their boorish attempts to produce and sell work on their own. It was as if the commentor thought he had somehow been wronged by the intrusion, when he likely tolerates self promotion in many other forms as a matter of course. I doubt he would be so inflamed by commercials on television or the ads before a movie. I doubt that he would even mind the occasional email from an author he likes advertising a book comming out in a few months. After all, those little communications between sellers and buyers are the key to civilization. Without communication, civilization doesn't exist and nobody would argue that listening is just as important as talking in a polite society. Yet somehow indie authors are treated like scum simply by trying to copy the model everyone else uses to survive. I dislike that attitude, and would even if I wasn't an indie author myself.

Of course, life provides a way to test us in our little principles. Not two minutes after I had finished working myself into an incandescent rage over the subject, a company spam posted on my blog. I believe that they would like me to publish my books through them, or at least print some hard copies through their business. My first reaction would normally have been annoyance, followed by a deletion of their post. After all, self promotion doesn't necessarily mean clumsy, spam promotion, and nobody likes spammers.

But then again, who knows? Maybe they are still learning how to do it right. So I'll leave it up and see. Because honestly I'd like to have a little "rudeness" now and then if it means coming across the occasional diamond in the rough. And nobody deserves to be looked down on without being given a chance.

And so ends the eternal rant. We'll be back to normal on Friday, I hope. See you then!

On The Measure of Success

2011-12-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

One of the things that can be hard about self publishing is how you measure your own success. This problem seems especially present at the beginning, since you never know how much of your books are being bought by family and friends (yeah, that means you Mom) and how many are being bought by new customers. Not only that but there is nobody outside of yourself that can really evaluate your numbers for you. There's no boss, publisher, or accountant looking at your sales and saying "Alright, this isn't working so let's do something different" or "Wow, we're doing pretty good, keep up the pace!" The only current judge of my success is myself, and that is unusual for someone who has spent his life passing other people's tests or trying to meet other people's business goals. The only similar situation has been when I was on my mission and had to set my goals for each week. It's crazy to think that I have that kind of freedom again, only now in a far different field of work.

So I think I will set some benchmarks for Wolfhound's success, just so that I can have them recorded here. That way I can try to adapt and change things if needed. Hopefully we will just sell thousands and thousands based off of my sheer, recognizable writing genius, but my brilliance cannot always carry the day, can it? :)

So, as a benchmark, we have set a minimum, scraping the bottom of the barrel goal of five books sold a month. If that's all that is happening, we are still moving forward, but we should probably look into changing marketing strategies or something in order to increase sales.

Fifty sales in a month are more like an okay number. Not bad, not good, but pretty much average in terms of our expectations. Wolfhound is my first book, after all, and we are hoping that we can sell at least that much until Kingsley goes up in February. It's a bit of an ambitious goal, but it would set us up with a decent base to launch from.

Anything over that would be awe-inspiring. One hundred in a month would make us happy, two fifty would have me dancing in the streets. Dreams to shoot for, but probably not going to happen unless things really take off--or at least until I get multiple books up and start in on the sequels.

So yeah, those are my benchmarks, if anyone was curious. As of now Wolfhound is currently edging towards "okay" territory, and blissfully staying out of "scraping" levels. We are already surpassing the hopes we had for December, and I'm taking that as a good sign of things to come. Thanks for sticking with us and for all of your support. See you around!

On Hardcovers and Kingsley's Cover

2011-12-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

So we have progress! The hardcover version of Wolfhound is now up on Lulu. It is selling for quite a bit more than the electronic version, but I've always thought that was worth it for a physical copy of a good book. And it is a good book, so... :)

In any case, we are going to try and get paperbacks up on Lulu and maybe Createspace this weekend, so stay tuned for that. We are going somewhere! Huzzah!

In other news, we have a cover for the first Hector Kingsley novel. It was created by the distinguished Mr. Robert Ennis. I think it looks awesome, and has only made me more excited for February to roll around so the book can go up. Until then, I'll see you around!

On Being Published+Guest Post with Joe

2011-12-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

Well, it is finally dawning on me that I have a book up where people can buy and read it. It is a weird feeling.

I guess part of it is the fact that I've worked so hard on that novel, and now there is nothing left to do. It's done, all over but the formatting. By the end of the week we hope to have the paperback and hardcover versions more or less adjusted and squared away, and after that point I will never have to edit Wolfhound ever again. That alone is a strange, unfamiliar feeling.

That's not even including the social aspect of the thing. I occasionally mention the book to my coworkers, half of whom don't seem to have remembered or realized what I was doing with the whole writing thing. Their reactions range from surprised to indifferent, but at the very least they tend to wonder what in the world I am doing with my life. When I try to explain about how pubishing has changed these days and what my writing plan is for the next few months, I get a few polite nods and maybe a glazed look. I think actually publishing something has forced me to realize exactly how much technical jargon I've absorbed over the past year of working on this thing.

Perhaps the strangest thing is that I actually know what I'm doing for the next year. Kingsley will probably be out by February, if everything goes to plan, and Iron Angels won't be too much longer after that. Good crappity, Badger is planned as coming out in six to eight months unless I totally drop the ball. And after that I have other books planned out stretching out all the way to December 2013; the main question about the whole thing is how I will find enough time to revise everything.

So yeah, I suddenly have a career outside of the emergency room. And it's awesome and strange and I'm not quite used to it yet. But thanks to everyone who has already bought the book (and thanks for the patience of the people waiting for the hardcover!), and I hope I don't let you all down, despite my failings. Also, go check out the guest post I did on Joe's blog! It talks about space pirates. Can't go wrong there! See you around!

On It's Done!

2011-12-09T11:55:00.000-08:00

It's up! Huzzah! Wolfhound is now up as an Amazon ebook. That alone is kind of nerve wracking, but I feel like I've done my best with it. As a first book and a start to my publishing career, I could hope for nothing better.

And of course, it has railguns, pirates and explosions in it. What more could you ask for? :)

So I will be putting the link to Amazon on the Links and Samples page. Links to the hardcover and paperback copies will be up as quickly as we can get them active (paper covers are so much harder!), so if you want to hold out for the non-ebook copy, keep checking back! Thanks to everybody for your support, and I will hopefully be on a more sane schedule soon. See ya!

On The Final Readthrough

2011-12-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

Getting to the end here, and once I'm done the book will start being put in by tomorrow morning. Almost there...

I'm happy to report that I like the book. I like it enough that I laugh at the characters and look forward to a lot of the scenes. That's a good sign right? Can you tell I'm nervous about this? Just a little?

On Eggnog

2011-12-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

How is it that this stuff only comes around once a year? We should start a petition or something...

On December

2011-12-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

Alright, we've made it to December. So far so good. Now I just need to make it to the end of the year, and then not only will Wolfhound be out, but we should be well on the way to getting a couple other projects up as well.

In terms of that progress, we have succeeded in getting cover artists not only for Kingsley, but also for Iron Angels! That, in addition to a copy editor for Kingsley, means that we have a sustainable little publishing schedule set up. Now all I have to do is get IA revised and out to alpha readers, and we should be set for the next little while.

Of course, all of that is easier said than done. End of December, end of December...

On the Finish Line

2011-11-28T10:03:00.000-08:00

So, another cross country related post. Hope it all makes sense.

I've done a previous post on a portion of my cross country course. As I mentioned then, our coach had taken great pains to provide a challenge to us and to our competitors. At one point, I heard that he had measured out the entire five kilometer (three and some odd miles for you non-cross country people) course to make sure that it was exactly one third up hill, one third down hill and one third flat.

Running the course could easily help you believe that rumor. There were several hills, each providing its own challenge and given its own unique name. There was Starter (pretty obvious reasons there), Ice Cream (sweet, sweet downhill), JV (cause its playin with ya) Sandy Hill (also obvious), and Mother (Cause it's not playing with you. At all). Each had its own way of confronting you with difficulty and forcing you to tough it out until you got to the top. By the time you got down off of those hills and onto the nice, flat bike path leading back to the finish, you were grateful they were all done.

What you didn't realize, of course, was the fact that all of those hills had been packed into about two thirds of the course. By the time you got down to the path, you still had a full 1200 meters left to go, nearly a full mile. If you sprinted the moment your feet hit the path, you were destined to die long before the finish.

The other thing you have to remember is where our coach put the finish line. He designed the course to loop back through a central area, where spectators could sit and watch the runners go by. You passed through that spot three different times after the start, and the finish line was set up right there. That means everyone is sitting there, waiting and cheering for you for the entire length of that last grueling flat section.

Those of you who run, especially in competition, know that cheering spectators are like crack for a runner. It's addictive; you want so badly to run harder and faster when people are shouting for you. It's an incredible boost, and one that I appreciated many times during my track and cross country days.

I did not appreciate it for the first thousand or so yards of runnning down that path, trying so hard not to sprint too early because I knew I wouldn't make it to the end. In a phrase, it sucked.

It was not an easy temptation to resist. After all, at the end of the race, you really, more than anything, just want it to be done. You want to stop running, cause it hurts. You want to get some water, maybe get your breath back, probably puke if it's been a really bad day. Mostly you want to finish hard, run well, and have the rewards of all the hard work you put in. Coach found a way to test us mentally with that last little trick of his, and I'm glad to say it taught me a lot that I need to know right now.

I say that because as of now, I'm on the last little bike path with Wolfhound. I have all the chapters for the book, I need only to go and look through some of the copy edits, format it and put it up online. There is an incredble urge just to put in a couple of 4am nights and have done with it, because it has been a really long race.

At the same time, I feel that is the worst thing I could do. I could get the book up, sure, but I would miss some of the final, refining touches that need to be made to it in order to make the story really shine. Putting those touches in means that I will no longer get the book up by the end of this Monday. It may mean that I will have to delay it until December 10th or so, which was the original deadline for the book before I started to advertise it around. Yet in spite of how frustrating that is to me, I believe that Wolfhound--not to mention my mental and physical health--will be better off in the long run for doing it.

So yeah, if you've noticed that the book isn't quite up yet, do not worry, it will be soon. I just haven't reached the sprinting point yet, and I hope that you will all have patience with me until I do. See you around!

Picture of the bike path courtesy of http://www.simsburyskirt.com/2010/08/stratton-brook-state-park.html. Yes, that was where the finish line was in the distance there. Yes, you could hear the spectators the whole way. And yes, Coach Cohen is a mad genius whose course terrified the other teams. He was awesome.

On Juggling Projects

2011-11-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

With all the excitement over Wolfhound--which hopefully will be up by next week--it is easy to lose track of where I am on the other stuff I've been working on. Here's a quick update on that.

Mysteries is now about 57k words long. That means I've got about two thirds of the book done, and that I'm on track to finish the first draft by the end of the year. Unfortunately, I seem to need to slow down my original schedule. What with the extra work to get Wolfhound up, the need to revise a few drafts of previous novels, and the general fatigue from the past six months or so of running all out, it is probably a better idea to stick to six thousand word weeks on Kingsley's second novel rather than push the envelope and risk burning out in two weeks. At least, that's my perspective.

Iron Angels is sadly still partway through the third draft. My ideas are ready and I'm starting to get excited about getting it ready for alpha readers. I just can't seem to find the brain energy to spare for it right now; Mysteries and Wolfhound are kind of stealing the show. Once Wolfhound's up, Iron Angels is next on the spot, and I hope to have it ready for an alpha read by mid-December. That way we will be on track for a fourth draft by the end of Feburary or so. I hope, I hope, I hope....

As for the True Adventures of Hector Kingsley, we have a breakthrough! We found an editor who is more than willing to run through the book for us, and the search is already on for a cover artist! I think that we have a better than decent chance of getting Kingsley up by the end of this winter, which is really exciting. It might be a little exhausting too, but that's the life of a writer I suppose.

In any case, those are all the projects I'm currently juggling right now. Soon as Wolfhound goes up, life will be a bit more managable. At least I think it should be, right? Hope all is going well for you guys, and I will see you around!

On Crunch Week

2011-11-21T10:02:00.000-08:00

One week to go! We just have to finish up the editing process, format everything so that it looks good on ebooks and paper copies, stick some bonus material in for the paper copies, get cover stuff for the teasers for the next books I'm publishing at the end of Wolfhound, write dedications, acknowledgements and a copyright page, format that stuff...

<_<>_>

Oh crap, we've only got one week left! AHHHH!

On Progressing as a Writer

2011-11-19T14:22:00.000-08:00

So I was thinking about it today and I have come to a decision. I think I am a better writer today than I was a year ago.

I know that must sound like a really obvious statement, but you have to look at this in perspective. When you are progressing as a writer it typically comes along very slowly. Your projects often take several weeks at a time, and it takes several weeks more to get most kinds of feedback on it. Often, aside from your own opinions on the subject, you don't have a lot of benchmarks to measure yourself by. It can seem like you are just running on a treadmill in terms of your skill, running and running until you wonder if you will ever have a chance to improve. That and there is this creeping fear that it is just as easy to lose your skill as it is to gain it, and that it could have happened to you.

Fortunately, I don't think that has happened to me. Wolfhound, is my first publishable quality novel. I've made it pretty much as good as it will be, and I feel confident that Jacob Hull will do a very good job of leading the way for my other stories to follow. Kingsley and Iron Angels both came afterward, and I can confidently say that the level of skill I've shown in those books is higher than Wolfhound, which given how good that first book is, really says something. Of course, they are also different types of books, so I could imagine that I was just finding a better kind of story to tell. The tipping point, I would have to say, was Badger, the sequel to Wolfhound. It's the same kind of story that Wolfhound was, though perhaps a bit less heavily structured, but it's just plain better. The characters stand out more, the plot is more balanced and understandable, and is all around a better story. I've gotten better!

I think I have had quite a few advantages that have helped me do that. My writing group has been a big part of that. The advice, suggestions and reactions of my fellow writers in that group have helped me to tweak my own writing style and grow as an author. The fact that I have been working flat out for about a full year on four different stories has helped me continue to improve--I didn't need to remember things that I'd learned with a previous project, because there hadn't been any downtime where I would have forgotten it. Finally, I've kind of had the desperation and determination provided by the fact that in a very short time I was going to have to start selling these things. That kind of need to produce things in order to publish on time breeds plenty of motivation to get better in the craft.

So yeah, I've gotten better at writing. Here's hoping that I can continue that progress as Wolfhound and my other stories start coming up over the next year. We shall have to see!

On eBook Fomatting

2011-11-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

I will never, for the rest of my life, indent a paragraph using the Tab button for as long as I live.

Also, I will not spell names in two different ways over the length of an entire novel.

That is all.

On Samples!

2011-11-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

So hey! I've managed to get sample chapters of Wolfhound up on my blog and over on the Wandering Leaf Publishing blog. Check it out for the beginning of the novel I'm putting up for sale in a couple of weeks. On this blog, it'll be under the Links and Samples page, along with the back cover description for the book. Hope you enjoy it!

On another note, AHHHHH! We're almost publishing something!

Another Interview Up+On Early Christmas Commercials

2011-11-11T11:42:00.000-08:00

So I've got another interview up, this time at Michele Ashman Belle's blog. I think it turned out pretty well, so go take a look.

So the other day I was watching TV during my lunch break--a luxury of working in the emergency room I suppose--and I found myself confronted by an age old enemy of mine. No, not the political ranting which now somehow occupies two thirds of any given preelection year. No, not people who hate videogames, or label nerds as an enemy of society. No, not even the spectre of bad sitcoms or repetitive drama shows disturbed my evening meal. It was a far older enemy that has haunted me more each coming year.

I speak, of course, of the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas commercial.

It may be that my feelings on this subject are tainted by the bias I picked up living in Massachusetts and Connecticut. There, Thanksgiving is a holiday you actually celebrate and everything, rather than a temporary gluttonous pause before launching into the shopping furor we know as Christmas. I like Thanksgiving. I like the memories I have from childhood of pumpkin pie and going over what I'm grateful for in my life. I think it is a tradition our society dearly needs to preserve. Yet each year it falls more and more by the wayside as Christmas tries to swallow November whole--having already polished off December of course.

The worst part about it is that it only gets worse from here. Holiday shows start taking the place of regular episodes, often just recycled stuff from the eighties. Songs I rarely want to hear before mid-December start repeating on the radios (is anyone else disturbed that we haven't had a new Christmas song since like the fifties?) and doesn't stop until they've squeezed every last drop of Holiday cheer out of it. The whole thing has gotten so overblown that it all begins to feel hollow.

This scourge has grown worse with the passing of time. I have not even had the opportunity to enjoy my traditional turkey and Pilgrim imagery, and I already have a bunch of idiots prancing to Christmas carols and telling me to buy something. My dear wife might consider me something of a Grinch when it comes to disliking these things. Maybe she's right, but it won't stop me from crying out indignantly when It's the Most Wonderful Time, to Buy Stuff gets butchered by another commercial in early November. Because trust me, at this point, somebody needs to.

Aaannnnd that's my curmudgeonly rant quota for the month. Happy Holidays!

On College

2011-11-09T11:17:00.001-08:00

Just some thoughts I've been pondering lately. I've come to the conclusion that college is less of a bank and more of a commitment to jump off a rock. Yes that will make sense later.

I can remember several times that various instructors, speakers and advisors told me during high school the reason I should go to college. "Go to college," they said, "that way you won't have to work so hard when you're older!" They would then lay out the math behind the reasoning--that college graduates make more money than those with just high school degrees, that the money made by simply getting a job doesnt measure up when compared to those future earnings, that all the best jobs required a college degree to get. All seemed like pretty good reasons, especially since I was planning on going anyway. It was like making deposits in a bank: I would just withdraw it at the end and not have to worry so much.

Of course, they didn't mention that most jobs also require job experience, and place more importance on that than on the degree. Or that it is possible--likely, even--that you change your mind and not work in the same field as your degree anyway. Or that sometimes there are such a lot of unremarkable college graduates applying for jobs in your field that you end up unemployed or interning for free instead of earning those higher salaries.

The biggest misconception, though, was the concept of not having to work hard after the bachelors degree is done. If you are still an undergrad and reading this, yes, people still do actually have to work hard after college. In fact, I would say that after college you have to work even harder, whether that means you are trying to kickstart your writing career, attending the grueling hours of medical school or putting in 60 to 80 hour weeks in a research lab somewhere. The Fallout videogame series has a saying: "War, war never changes." There is a similar one that people should probably adopt when considering higher education. "Work, work never changes." It's going to be hard, it's going to be unpleasant, and there is no place on this planet you can hide from it. That includes mom's basement. :)

So rather than going to college and getting a degree with the hope of hiding away in a comfortable, work-free niche afterwards, please go to find the career you are passionate about. Find that thing that makes your life satisfying, where the work, while hard, is fulfilling. Then commit to working your brains out to make that career happen. Because if you are going to be suffering through all that work, you may as well commmit to something you care about. Otherwise, life will be terribly unpleasant. Kind of like someone who has jumped off a rock and hesitates partway through, it's not going to end well. You will probably end up with lots of bumps, bruises, and disappointment.

So whatever you decide in terms of education--and I think this will apply to graduate school as much as undergrad stuff--commit or you'll always regret it. And if at the end of your jump you find something you don't like, pick yourself up get back up the rock and try again. At least, that's my take on things. For what it's worth. See you around!

On Getting Through November + Interview at A Storybook World

2011-11-07T07:23:00.000-08:00

Alright! So it's been a busy last couple of weeks. We are officially about three weeks out from putting Wolfhound online, and that fact has me a little intimdated, excited, befuddled and happy. It's kind of a mix of things. In one way I feel like it's taking forever to get up, because I've been working on publishing this thing for months now. At the same time, it's like this deadline is rushing straight at me way, way too fast. So I'm now enjoying the delightful blend of impatience and panic that I would assume accompanies the publication of anyone's first book. I guess that means I've hit the perfect middle ground then right?

Progress on Mysteries continues apace. I'm at about the halfway point, which is more or less where I had wanted to be by now. Based on the status of other projects, however, I think that I will need to prolong the number of weeks I work on this one. It is not that the novel is taking too long--far from it in fact--I just need more time to revise other projects so that they are ready for the next step in the process. Among those projects would be a 3.2 draft of Iron Angels to get it ready for an alpha read (would have already been ready with 3.1, but then I got an excellent character development idea), work on getting a copy editor/cover artist team together for the True Adventures of Hector Kingsley, a 2.1 draft for Badger (Emily really liked it! Huzzah!)and finally the formatting and prep work to put Wolfhound up on the 28th. I figure that those projects are important enough to extend the schedule a little bit for Hector's second novel, especially if it means that I get the next few books up online in a shorter amount of time.

So yeah, that's the progress so far! I just need to make it through this month without going completely nuts and we will have finally gotten this book up! Now it's just a matter of following through...

On another note, I have another interview up, at A Storybook World. Go there and read it! See you around.

On Making the Shift

2011-11-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

So it occured to me that I look at writing much differently now than I did a year ago.

Before I decided to make writing a career, writing used to be what I did for fun, or what I did to relax. How much I wrote in a day or a week really didn't matter, and finishing a book was almost something I did just to have it done.

Now I'm on a writing schedule. I still enjoy the work, but that's what it is now, work. I'm responsible to produce so many words in a week, and I try to hold myself to those expectations. It's a different perspective, and I wonder if that shift in viewpoint is the difference between people who putter along on projects and people who actually make it as writers.

Then again, maybe I should wait until I have a book online before I talk myself up, huh?

On Birthdays

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today I will turn twenty seven years old.

For some reason this birthday fells like a turning point to me. Twenty seven seems to be the age that I can no longer tell myself I'm just a "young adult". Maybe it is just that a lot has happened since my last birthday. I've had a daughter come into the world, I've decided on a career and gotten the wheels turning on publishing a book, and I've even somehow managed to write three or four more books to continue publishing after that. I've held down a job for over a year, kept the writing group going for a year after that, and have been living in Houston for nearly as much time as I once lived in Washington state. Looking back over the past few years, I've managed to get through a lot more challenges and changes than I ever could have expected.

Somehow, without quite realising it, I've become an adult.

The change is a little disconcerting. I have to be mature now, responsible even. I have a family depending on me to do what needs to be done, to provide for and protect. I'll need to take care of myself to, so that I can be there for them when they need me. That means I'll need to start thinking about retirement funds, health care plans, even life insurance... All that stuff I thought that other, more mature people could deal with. Maturity sucks.

That still doesn't mean I'll be giving up all the little nerdy quirks and habits that make me, well, me. I wouldn't want to leave all that behind, of course, or try to be someone I am clearly not. I suppose I will just need to get a bit smarter about it. Wish me luck; I'll probably need it.

And with that cheery sentiment, happpy birthday to me! Also, it's November! Four weeks to publication!

On One Month Until Publication

2011-10-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

So as of yesterday, I have about thirty one days until my first book goes up for sale, and I find out if other people like the story as much as I do.

...

AHHHHH!

All futile panicking aside, I am really, really excited about this whole thing. It is an incredible opportunity to put my work out there and to have the help of so many people to get this thing done. We have had a wonderful cover artist, an impressively dedicated copy editor, and friends willing to both give advice and help refine our efforts. I've been amazed at the amount of help and friendship we've recieved, and in case I haven't remembered to do so before, I just want to thank all of you for being there when we needed you.

Now we just need to get the edit done and format everything for release. Also, now that I think about it, if we mean to get Kingsley up in four months, we need to look for another batch of cover art and copy editing. Along with Mysteries and Iron Angels, that should be more than enough to keep me busy. Like I needed help with that before, right? See ya!

Guest Post on My Writing Bug

2011-10-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

So I have a guest post up on another blog! Chantele Sedgwick was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to do an interview on her blog, My Writing Bug. Her blog supports a lot of aspiring authors, and she has her own books in the works to be published. In my interview she asked me about my writing schedule, my favorite authors and a few other little tidbits. Thanks again to Chantele for her support, and I wish her luck in her own projects!

On a Crazy Baby

2011-10-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

So, those of you interested in Sera news, she is now crawling all over the place and getting into everything. She's cruising, grabbing and giggling up a storm pretty much every time we turn around. For example, yesterday she pulled the fruit drawer out of the fridge, messed with a bag of stuff she found on the ground, discovered our DVD collection and made her way along the table we have in the living room without falling down.

How did the little bundle we brought home get so big already? Next thing I know she'll be talking. Oh, the humanity...

On a Crazy Week

2011-10-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

You know its been a particularly crazy week when you can't remember the last normal day at work you had. This week has been one of those, for better or worse. To all those who have emailed me and are still waiting on a response, yeah, I will try and get back to you by the end of the night. I just hope that I can make it through November, because at this rate I'm starting to wonder if my poor little brain can take it.

At the very least my writing schedule has been moving along pretty well. Hector Kingsley's second book, for now Mysteries in Whitechapel, has now reached the one third point, which means that I've already written everything that my writing group will see before I rewrite it for the alpha readers. That's always kind of a turning point for the story in a lot of ways, and I am very glad to have reached it. I'm also all the way through the second draft of Badger; now I've turned it over to Emily for a preread. She always gets the good stuff first (mostly because at that point it isn't that good, and she's an excellent editor.) and she's liking it so far. Iron Angels' third draft could be going a bit better, but I've nailed down Susan's character a bit better and I hope to have it ready by the end of October to send out to alpha readers.

All in all, things are going well, just really, really busy. I hope that all of you are keeping up with the challenges life throws at you as well, and I'll see you around!

PS. Here's the cover for Wolfhound as far as we've got it. Cool, huh?

On Wolfhound: The Cover and Possible Ads

2011-10-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

So we've been working on creating ads and an official cover for Wolfhound. Well, at least Emily has (Thanks Em!). Here are a few of the ads that we've come up with.

And another...

And one more!

So those are the ones we've come up with so far. They all, of course, feature the art of Paul Hamblin, who is awesome. Let me know if there are other ideas you have for more ads, and I will see you around!

On Bios

2011-10-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Bios are hard to write. I have now officially discovered why authors hate these things. I guess part of it is the fact that a bio is either a list of your previous accomplishments or a story about yourself, neither of which seems very comfortable to me at the moment. The list of credentials thing doesn't really work when your entire publication history consists of a contest I won at BYU and a degree that has nothing to do with writing. Not exactly the kind of resume that I want to introduce people to when I am just starting out.

The other way of doing it seems just as hard, but at least it has the advantage of being more personal. I think I will probably end up going with that one, since it would help readers get to know me and what I am doing. Still, it just seems weird to be writing something about myself rather than one of my characters. They're so much cooler than I am, after all.

In any case, hope all is going well for you guys and I will see you around!

On Bad Discoveries

2011-10-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

Sera has made a pair of very unfortunate discoveries. First among these is the discovery that she can attract our attention by doing things we don't like her doing. That would be things like grabbing computer cords, banging her head against things, etc.

Secondly, she's discovered that I don't like having the hair on my legs pulled out. Combined, these things are bad news...

On Cover Art

2011-10-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

...

AHhahahahahahahahaha! It's awesome!

Many thanks to Paul Hamblin, the incredibly talented artist behind this wonderful cover. See you later!

On Updating Schedule

2011-10-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Alright, so the past few weeks it has been a bit difficult for me to update this blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Part of that comes from the fact that I have had such a crazy writing schedule outside of the blog, and another part comes from the fact that it is pretty hard to come up with three interesting blog posts in a week. I mean, my life does not seem so entirely interesting that I would need three posts a week to detail it to the world. Of course, rampant laziness is also a factor, but I flatter myself and say it is a small one.

Then again, a blog is always a good form of advertising and marketing, which is something that I will need as Wolfhound gets closer to publication. And I am loathe to lose those few readers that I already have.

So what do you guys think? Should I cut it back to two a week, Tuesday and Thursday, or do you feel I would be cutting myself short? Or are you kind of just ambivalent about the whole thing? Hope all goes well for you guys, and I will see you later.

On Marketing

2011-10-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

I would just like to preface this post by saying one thing. I apparently suck at marketing. Apparently when people were lining up for talents before we came here, I was off eating cupcakes or something when this one was handed out.

I am trying to improve though. As of a few days ago I now have a Project Wonderful account, and I am already surfing around trying to figure out which sites I want to carry ads for Wolfhound. I just need the cover art to come through (any day now I hope?) and we should have ads soon after! I am even doing blog stuff! If there's anything else you guys think I should do, let me know. I am willing to branch out in order to make this thing work.

It's just too bad that all of this involves talking to people. Bah, my one weakness...

On Dwarf Fortress

2011-10-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

Some of you may recall the post I did on Spelunky, that wonderful game where everything--and I do mean everything will conspire to kill you. Dwarf Fortress is a similar game with one difference: while Spelunky once in a while, out of sheer pity, may allow you to win, Dwarf Fortress does not. Mercy, pity, remorse, Dwarf Fortress needs nothing of these things, and you may hope for none of them here.

Dwarf Fortress is the product of a single developer, who I believe is a math teacher. That alone should give you pause, but the motto doesn't really give a whole lot of room for interpetation. When the rallying cry of a community is that "Losing is fun!", then you know that the game's going to be a little more challenging than your average game of Halo.

The point of Dwarf Fortres is to construct a colony of happy, productive little dwarfs in a particular region of a preconstructed world. Among the challenges you face include goblins, trolls, titans, madness, more goblins, magma, aquifers, flooding, drought, famine, lack of beer, hippy elves, more goblins... I think you get the picture.

Since it is a free, independently developed game, the original graphics are limited to some pretty obscure ASCII characters. There are some graphics tilesets out there that can make it prettier, but at the moment it looks like an impenetrable wall of characters when you start. Weirdly enough, though, if you play long enough it becomes perfectly understandable before long. Graphics, however, are going to be the least of your worries.

To say that the interface for Dwarf Fortress has a steep learning curve is kind of like saying that Mount Everest is a little hard to climb. The understatement is a killer. The person making this game has planned out nearly everything, from how the water flows downhill to how magma flows. He has modeled how injuries to dwarves play out not only in the general "blows to the head kill you faster" sense but also to the "if this guy hits the dwarf in the hand, he may lose feeling in some of his fingers for a while" sense. Wind, migration patterns for animals, social dynamics between dwarves and even the possible difficulties in providing healthcare for your settlement are taken into account, along with whatever possible disasters they might cause.

The number of possible failures are numerous. One fortress might fall when a maddened carpenter slaughters half your population, leaving the rest to fall into mourning, starvation and frantic attempts to survive. Another might succumb to a devastating assault by a goblin horde. Yet another when you accidentally build a volcano in the middle of your settlement (yes, you can!), while another might fall apart simply because of a sudden famine that leaves your weakened dwarves too vulnerable to fight off the elements any longer. The list goes on, but every fortress is a frantic, futile effort to keep your dwarves alive until finally your settlement is brought to ruin.

Yet in spite of the difficulty of this game and the sheer complexity of its mechanics, Dwarf Fortress is incredibly addicting. You get to design every aspect of your fortress yourself, and you quickly become attached to the stubborn, frustrating creatures you command. The online wiki helps make things a little less frustrating, and the fact that the game is free certainly adds to its appeal. If you have a few days to spend on a puzzle with infinite creative variations, I highly recommend Dwarf Fortress. And if you take me up on that, good luck. Don't let the giant cave spiders bite.

Guest Post by Joe Vasicek: On Music and Writing

2011-10-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

So today we have a guest post by Joe Vasicek, an independent writer who happens to be a friend of mine. His books are already up on Amazon, along with several of his short stories that he has graciously allowed you to obtain for free. Go check them out!

And without further introduction, here's Joe!

I have a mild case of ADHD, which means that I alternate between being hyperfocused on an activity to being distracted by anything and everything. As a writer, this can make things difficult, especially when I’m slogging through the middle of a draft where everything seems to suck. But when I get on a roll, the writing comes much easier, provided I can train myself to focus.

Music has tremendous power to cut through the distractions and focus my thoughts on the story I'm trying to write. For that reason, I usually put together a soundtrack for each of my books, and listen to it repeatedly while writing them. Over time, I gradually come to associate certain tracks with certain characters or scenes, so that all I have to do is hit play and let my mind take off with the story.

The trick is finding the right music. For any given soundtrack, there will usually be only two or three songs that really trigger that state of hyperfocus for me, while the rest just help keep me from getting distracted. It's partially about finding the song that evokes the right emotion, but it's also a matter of personal association and things that might have very little to do with the music itself.

For example, when I was writing an early draft of Bringing Stella Home, I saw this clip from Il Mercenario. The scene struck me powerfully, because it features a downtrodden, defeated rebel who is given a second chance and uses it to face his demons like a man.

In a broad sense, that's very similar to James McCoy's struggle from my book: his older brother and sister have been captured by spacefaring barbarians, and all he wants is a chance to prove himself and get them back. Just like the rebel from the movie, James gets knocked down repeatedly--and always gets back up.

As soon as I'd made that connection, I knew that song would have to be in the soundtrack for my novel. For the next two or three drafts, it became the first track I'd listen to--the one that triggered me to start writing.

This song from the Halo 2 soundtrack makes me think of the mercenary team from the novel, who take James in and give him that chance he's been looking for. I remember listening to this on the Washington DC Metro while I was at my K Street internship, thinking of all the things I would put into the story as I worked on the third draft. Music can be great for focusing my thoughts in the prewriting stage, which is often just as important as the writing itself.

Another major song was this remix of a track from Shinobi III, featured on overclocked remix. I had my mp3 player on shuffle and this track came on just as I finished the last chapter of one of the early drafts of the novel. The bittersweet emotion evoked by the music paralled the emotion of the book's ending so perfectly, I can't listen to this song anymore without thinking about Bringing Stella Home.

A lot of these connections are so personal they probably wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to someone just listening to the music, but that's okay--these homemade soundtracks aren't for the reader so much as they are for the writer. In that sense, finding and listening to the right music can be a great writing technique.

In college, I got most of my music from Overcocked Remix. The site features over two thousand fan-made remixes and arrangements of video game music, and not only is it all free, but the quality is amazing. My favorite remixers are Zircon, bLiNd, and Phr4cture; they've also produced some independent stuff that is quite good, Zircon in particular. Well worth checking out.

Nowadays, I get my music from a variety of places. I've recently taken a liking to trance and progressive, with artists such as Armin Van Buuren, Tenishia, Protoculture, tyDi, Jaren, and others. Trance is all about emotion, and so is fiction--that's why we have genre categories like "romance," "thriller," and "fantasy" which revolve around the emotion the stories are supposed to evoke.

But really, it all depends. Every project is different, as the wide variety of the music in my homemade soundtracks attests. When everything clicks and the story just flows, it's pure magic.

To kick off the release of my novel Bringing Stella Home, I'd like to give away a free copy of the companion novella, Sholpan. When the spacefaring Hameji barbarians capture Stella McCoy and make her a concubine to their chief overlord, it seems as if she is powerless to resist. But by refusing to compromise her values, she finds friends in unexpected places, even as the dangerous world of harem politics threatens to destroy her.

To download a free copy, select your preferred format from the story's Smashwords page and input the following coupon code: SN58S (not caps sensitive). The offer expires in a week, however, so be sure to pick it up before the 13th.

Joe's blog is at www.onelowerlight.com. He has all sorts of interesting posts over there, so check that out as well. In any case, your regularly scheduled nerd stuff will be back on Saturday. See you then!

On Cyberpunk

2011-10-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

So I have been thinking lately about a cyberpunk novel idea. Why I would be wandering off on the subject when I already have so much to do, I have no clue, but the bits I've cobbled together have come from a few different sources.

Cyberpunk, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, involves a future setting in which the boundry between machines and humanity is explored. It tends to be pretty gothy, and the main protagonist tends to be a loner who hacks his way to victory against cold, unfeeling corporate overlords. Cyberpunk tends to be pretty dark, and grim as well. I guess the Matrix was a good example of cyberpunk genre in film, and there's a lot more out there.

My first exposure was a game that I ran across called Deus Ex. It was a pretty fun game, but kind of dated. A new prequel to it has come out recently called Deus Ex: Human Revolution. For those of you who like videogames, look it up. It looks awesome. Sadly I am denied the opportunity to play it since I have no console or TV, but the entire concept of the game is fascinating to me. The setting is in a future where mechanical augmentations--and later nano augmentations--are widely available. Something about that caught my attention, and I have been studying it for a while.

Of course, another source of interest in cyberpunk comes from the fact that cyberpunk is closely related to steampunk. My foray into the world of Hector Kingsley has so far turned out to go very well, so why not try a related culture?

I think that if I wrote it though, I would try to turn some of the conventions on their heads. That seems to work well for me. The only problem that I would see is that cyberpunk always seems to carry some kind of political context to it, and that might turn away readers. Oh well, I won't have time to explore it for quite a while yet anyway. I will continue to ponder it more. See ya!

On General Conference

2011-10-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

Ah General Conference. Always a time to listen to the prophets and reevaluate our lives. My life is full of memories of going to nearby stake centers to listen, or as the conference became available on the internet, gathering with my family to hear the words of the Lord's servants. I remember going to preisthood sessions on Saturday with Dad and Caleb, and listening to the direction the prophets had for us. Of course, I also have memories of spending half of conference doodling on some project or other as the hours wore on. Naps occasionally happened, as I am sorry to say. Let's just say that I wasn't always really good about paying attention when I should have. :)

This year I have to work during conference weekend. This will be the third conference where I only get to hear part of the talks. To put it bluntly, that really sucks. I've missed listening to each of the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency speak, and it always feels like I am missing out on something that is extremely important. I'm sure it will be especially bad this time, since I am looking for a lot of guidance lately. With my baby girl growing up, uncertainty about my future career, and other questions spinning around my head like a tornado, I could use all of the direction I can get. Unfortunately I will have to wait for some of that guidance.

Let's just hope that guidance comes during the morning sessions, right? See you around!

On Crawling

2011-09-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

No, this is not a post on the progress I've made this week writing-wise (though it very well could be. Stupid reasonable limits on my abilities...)I am proud to announce that Sera, as of two days ago, is now a crawler.

She can now toddle pretty much anywhere she wants. This means that anything--from computer cords to toys to shoes--is now fair game. The chaos has officially begun...

On the State of the Writer

2011-09-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

Friday was somewhat less than a good day. I think I basically hit my stress limit in terms of all the projects that I've been working on, and my brain decided to take a little vacation. My apologies for those who have been awaiting any news from me. I know there were many who were holding their breath. :)

In any case, my most recent question is if I should try to publish Kingsley indie style or traditional style. Going indie with Kingsley means further investment out of my own pocket, but it offers rewards quicker. Traditional means waiting a year or two to see if the publishers will want to pick it up, which will tax my patience, but it would reach a broader market and require less financial backing on my part.

Which side do you guys come down on? I know some of you have already weighed in, but feel free to give your opinions. See you around!

On the Wall

2011-09-24T07:38:00.001-07:00

It has been hit...

On Setting New Goals (aka Scheduling Crazy Stuff)

2011-09-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

So Murders in Whitechapel (or Mysteries in Whitechapel as I think it will probably be called), has been progressing pretty well. I am about seven thousand words in, and the story is shaping up pretty well.

My attempt to rewrite Iron Angels fell a little flat, however. Instead, I decided to turn Badger into a readable copy first, while I am still interested in Jacob's story. Once I get to that point, I will return to Gabriel and Susan and hopefully get an alpha reader copy out by mid October. After that, I will do another revision of Adventures and probably send out queries and summaries to editors and agents by the beginning of November. That will get me ready to finish off Mysteries by mid-November, and hopefully get Wolfhound published on Amazon and Smashwords by late November/early December, thus completing my journey towards having something up by Christmas.

On a totally unrealted note, I'm feeling kind of tired lately. Any ideas why? :) See you around!

On Hobbies

2011-09-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

So I realized the other day that I don't have any hobbies. This disturbs me.

I used to have plenty of hobbies, but I seem to have either outgrown them or turned them into careers. Writing was once a hobby, but now I am doing it at a pace that makes it a career rather than something I do just to goof off. Gaming was something I did up until college, and videogames don't seem to fit the pattern of hobby that I'm thinking of. Running I guess you could consider a hobby, but it falls more into the exercise category since it isn't like I am preparing for races or anything.

I think I might need to start one, if only to bleed off some of the stress of working full time, plus writing books, plus baby. Any ideas on hobbies I could do? Post some that might be interesting, and I hope you all are doing well. See ya!

On Darker and Grittier

2011-09-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

It's always a bit disconcerting for me when a character disagrees with me on how I am writing him or her.

Yet it happens on a fairly regular basis. Most recently, Kingsley decided to disagree with me on how I was writing the sequel.

I had originally intended to have a large portion of the book to be devoted to tracking down a serial killer in London. It was going to be a rather gruesome case, with a lot of violent themes involved, until Kingsley finally undoes the whole thing. Murders in Whitechapel was going to be kind of like the Dark Knight book of my series, exploring the nature and causes of evil.

Kingsley didn't like that. His style just didn't seem to fit with the darker tone the story was taking, and it certainly didn't fit with the event style plot. He's a detective, and his story follows mysteries and questions, not events and battles. Further, there tends to be very little gory stuff in a Kingsley book, even with violent characters like Rook in the mix. Trying to stick such a dark plot just didn't seem to work.

And so I had to change things, refocus them on new questions instead of a new event. The story has shifted around Kingsley's way of telling it, instead of the way I had pictured it before. Now I've got what might as well be a different story, to the point where I almost want to change the story to Mysteries in Whitechapel instead of Murders. It's weird, but it works a lot better, and I am looking forward to writing it that much more.

Oh well, I suppose it will turn out well in the end... See you around!

On Prologues

2011-09-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

You know, I don't think that prologues are all that bad.

There are a lot of prologue-hating authors out there, and they make a lot of very good points about the deficiencies of including a prologue in a story. It's often an unreasonable delay to the story, many prologues don't tend to add anything to the plot, character development or mystery of a story, and there are many prologues which signal instantly to the reader that they should turn their brains off and coast for as long as the prologue lasts, if only to be able to enjoy the story that follows. A lot of this comes from prologues that tend to exist only to "tell the reader what they need to know" or explain some obscure part of the backstory that doesn't show up again until much later on in the book. These prologues can break a story before its even begun.

Yet I've noticed lately that a lot of these arguments only really target poorly-done prologues rather than the concept of a prologue in general. There are a lot of well done prologues, including those written by Brandon Sanderson and other fantasy writers, that add a lot to the flavor of the story. I'd say that as long as a prologue helps the reader get a feel for the world and the main characters, it can actually do a lot of good. One example of that is the prologue to Mistborn or Elantris. They not only provide some small setting details and character traits, but also set the tone and flavor of the tale that follows, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in the story.

Another example comes from my own work. There is a certain series of stories about a certain steampunk investigator who gives a short prologue before each of his books. While some setting details are revealed, the main function is to allow the reader to get a feel for Mr. Kingsley and his view of life. I'd say that without that short 600 word prologue, the rest of the story would not go nearly as well. In fact, it would pretty much break the book.

My evidence for that comes from the sequel. When I started the newest iteration of the series, I had to labor over the prologue a while before I got it right. The first version was so bad it had to be thrown out completely. It set the tone entirely wrong, and I actually couldn't convince myself to continue writing because the story just felt wrong. But the second...

Let's just say that it tastes like victory. Mwahahaha!

So let's all be nice to prologues, alright? They do have some good points, and you never know. Someday, you might end up writing one yourself... and even worse, you might like it.

In any case, I hope that your lives are going well, and I'll see you around!

On A New Project

2011-09-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

I made it! Badger is now done, at least as far as the first draft is concerned. The book will likely need a second draft before it can be readable, but for now I will be shifting my focus to the next project: Murders in Whitechapel.

I'm a bit concerned on how to start this one off. Part of the problem is that Kingsley is a mystery oriented story, which is very different from the event oriented storyline in Badger. Rather than a battle, I need to inject intrigue and trickery, which requires a bit of a different focus.

Another part of the problem is that unlike the first Kingsley novel, you start this one with a fairly good idea of who at least one of the bad guys is. That brings the conflict a lot more quickly into focus than the first book, and changes at least some of it from a "Whodunnit" type story to a "Whatshegonnado" plot. It's enough of a difference to make things subtly different, and it presents a puzzle I'm going to need to work around to get things right. Given the success I had with the first book, I am hoping to not flub the second one completely, so there's that presure to deal with as well.

At the same time I'm going to be doing a third draft rewrite of Iron Angels. The writing group has made its way through nearly a third of the second draft, and their critiques have given me fuel enough to go through and make my alpha readable draft now. That story's pretty different from Jacob's or Kingsley's as well, but I don't think it will distract me too badly. I hope.

Here goes everything...

On Anniversaries

2011-09-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

You know, every year around this time I start to worry a little about the state of my soul.

Maybe it's the constant, politicized reminiscing about Sept 11th in the news. Maybe it's the op eds that try to explain what happened and how, sometimes occasionally placing the blame on us as a nation rather than the murdering bastards who committed the crime in the first place. Maybe it's the sudden worries about various groups or individuals who might try to duplicate the tragedy of that day, simply to make some kind of political point, alongside the distant memory that things didn't use to be this way. We used to live without worrying about having a major terrorist attack each year at the beginning of September, we didn't use to have airports that acted more like screening centers than travel hubs, and we didn't have an anniversary to commemorate quite possibly the worst day in recent American history. Or maybe, as I half suspect, I just have a particular emotional trauma associated with the whole thing that has simply refused to heal.

So I end up being angry half the time, for no particular reason. I hate hearing about that day, dislike reading op ed articles about it. In fact, I've started avoiding most articles that have to do with it around this time because I just know by the end of them I'll be enraged. The frustration just sort of sours and festers and sits for as long as the collective 'celebration' of the 'holiday' lasts, until it passes and we can get on with life as usual. At least we can until next year when we do it all again.

In the beginning I kind of tried to deal with it with bitter, sarcastic humor. I would make jokes about it, as if by mocking it I could deny how much it hurt. That wasn't too healthy, but just chaining it up and soaking in the anger doesn't seem to work either.

At some point I started to wonder if all this anger is really just something wrong with me. That I just haven't healed the way some people have and it's my fault that I keep nursing the grudge or whatever that causes it in the first place. I wonder if I have someone I need to forgive in order to get past it, and then I wonder how to forgive someone who uses what happened to get political gain, or to sell tickets to a movie, or to sell newspapers? Or how do you forgive the people who originally did this in the first place? I still haven't found a way, and I wonder if I ever will.

This year it was kind of especially bad. Probably because it was the tenth year since the attacks more than anything else. I just wish that some day, somehow, I can manage to get all the way from August to October without once having to say "crap, it's that time of year again." Or even better, if I could look back on Sept 12th and say, "Oh yeah, I guess yesterday was the anniversary. Huh."

Someday, right?

On Frustration

2011-09-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

Well, if this post goes up, it means we've gone a whole week without Internet access. I'm most likely alright--if by alright you mean curled up in a corner whimpering--but we'll be back soon. Really soon! I hope I hope I hope...

On Hitting the Home Stretch

2011-09-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

So by the end of the week, I hope to be finished with Badger. Huzzah! It is at this point that my writing drive goes into high gear. Maybe it's a leftover from the cross country and track days, when I would throw everything I had into the final push before the finish line. When I got to the end of Kingsley, I was writing fifteen thousand words a week; the Iron Angels finish was a similar burst of new words written in the final week. So far Badger is shaping up to be similar, so I have high hopes to finish the thing by Saturday, in spite of moves, baby and work in the emergency room. :)

Of course, the end of Badger's first draft means the beginning of the next Kingsley novel is right around the corner. The working title will be The Continued Adventures of Hector Kingsley: Murders in Whitechapel. If you have protests, requests, demands or bargains for that project, now's the time to make them! In any case, I hope that all goes well for each of you in your work, whether in writing or your other pursuits. Hopefully the Internet will be back up in our new digs, and I will have a report for you then. See ya!

On the Publishing Industry Part Three: Changes for Publishers and Writers

2011-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

So the changes to the bookstores will probably continue to change the relationship that publishers and writers have with each other. As I said, the publishers traditionally acted as the negotiators with the distributors, something which may be a lot less necessary in days to come. I think that publishers may act as a different kind of help for writers, shifting from the go between for writers and distributors to the go between for authors and their readership.

The reason for that shift is pretty logical. The publishers, for all their faults, still know how to market and prepare books for a wide readership. Self-published authors, while they might get a lot of that work done on a contract basis, just don't have the same kind of experience. Cover art, copy editing and a lot of other work that goes into a book have been done by publishers for so long that they have made it into, well, an art. Marketing is another facet of the industry where the publisher has reigned supreme. The boost in readership that a self-published or e-published author could enjoy merely by being associated with a publishing brand is incentive enough for them to accept traditional contracts now; I can only imagine how much more attractive those kinds of deals will become once the publishers adjust to the new state of things.

At the same time, writers are going to enjoy a lot more control and responsibility in the industry than they have before. Publishers and agents may start treating e-publishing as a kind of universal slush fund, and offer contracts to the writers whose work rises above the rest. They may even start offering contracts where the books come out before the hard copy, allowing publishers the chance to gauge how much demand there are for the books. The issue is that it might start to depend on which authors the publishers can count on to produce work on a steady schedule, authors who know enough about contracts not to get suckered into bad deals with agents or publishers. Contracts may change as well, revolving more around royalty rates, deadlines, and rights to the work itself than advances or multiple book deals. A new breed of author might need to be willing to create themselves as marketable properties and brands for publishers to pick up, almost like viedo game companies working with consoles. The new state of things will ask for writers with business sense and at least some marketing knowledge, which traditionally has not been true.

One thing I don't see happening is the absolute disappearance of publishers as a whole. While they may be scrambling right now, and while here and there they haven't been adapting in a good way, publishers simply have too much usefulness and staying power to vanish. It will be interesting to see what further changes come and how the industry grows as a result. We shall see how I can fit into things; hopefully there's a place in all of this mess for a little newcomer like me. :)

In any case, hopefully my internet will be up by Monday and our move will be complete. Wish us luck, I think we'll need it. See ya!

On the Publishing Industry Part Two: The Future of Bookstores

2011-08-31T09:00:00.001-07:00

So bookstores have been dealt a pretty harsh blow. Borders went under, and lots of other brick and mortar stores have either followed suit or are swirling the drain. Amazon continues to sell more and more of the books people are reading, and epublishing has cut out the bookstores from the process entirely.

As I see it, there are a few options for the bookstores to follow in the coming days. I'm going to try and lay it out as clearly as I can and hopefully I will not attract anyone's ire. Here goes nothing...

Option One: The Borders. This option involves more or less doubling down and continuing to try and keep the business going as usual. Ignoring the changes going on in the electronic market, the bookstore tries to squeeze more cash out of the writers and publishers supplying it with material. As time goes on and profits remain dismal, the store tries last minute attempts to adapt, perhaps even throwing grand sales in a grasping try to catch up to where their competitors already are. They end up going the way of Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and Borders, closing their doors in defeat as the market leaves them behind.

Option Two: The Hybrid. This option relies on diversifying the product the store sells. Barnes and Noble seems to have relied on this one extensively, developing not only its hard copy books, but also music, board games and the Nook. That last one was probably the more important one, because it helped put a hand in the territory that Amazon's Kindle had occuped alone for so long. As a result, the bookstore continues to make enough profits in order to survive, but not much else will change in its relationships with traditional publishers and authors. The only real difference is that in addition to the product coming from self-published authors will be lined up alongside traditional authors, in the electronic half at least. Self-published authors may still get exluded from hard copy bookshelves though, so no real change there.

Option Three: The Comic Book Store. Rather than continuing as a hardline corporate institution, the bookstore starts to rely on local and cultural appeal to continue functioning. They feature hard copies not only from traditional authors, but also local epublished authors as well to appeal to local audiences. Book signings, book readings, tables for writing groups or book clubs, and other add ons might draw more interest to the physical building. Online, the bookstore forms a strong relationship with print on demand companies as well as the usual publishers, so that they can get at least a small amount of profit through that source. They might even communicate directly with self-published authors to get signed copies of books in their stores like collector's items. All in all, the bookstore becomes more of a cultural icon, a gathering place for people who enjoy books, than a commercialized business venture.

So those are the three options that I see availble. There are probably more, but these seem to be more likely than the rest. Obviously, any of these changes are going to effect how publishers and writers run their side of the business, so that will be the purpose of the next post. See you then!

On the Publishing Industry Part One: The Situation

2011-08-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

So those of you who have been following the conflict over the current state of the publishing industry (who by the way are entirely nerds) know that the battle lines have apparently been drawn between those who support "traditional" publishing and those who are going full speed ahead with the new concept of epublishing. Some on one side use the argument that the epublishing sphere is producing a bunch of crap that will crowd out good literature and ultimately harm the industry as a whole, while the epublishers are crowing about the apparent downfall of the publishing companies that have acted as gatekeepers for so long and the birth of a new era of freedom for writers as a whole.

I think in a lot of ways the industry has changed permanently, but the conflict we are seeing between self publishers and publishers, editors and agents isn't helping any of us adapt to the change.

First off, a distinction needs to be drawn between the publishers and the distributors. You have to keep in mind that for the past who knows how long, the only way a book could be sold was through a bookstore, and that most of those bookstores were chains owned by a handful of companies. Publishing companies were the people who developed relationships with those distributors and got the books from the authors hands to the stores. They were almost like the union for writers as a whole; they were big enough that the distributors had to listen to them or lose out on product, and for the most part I believe that they tried to guarantee the fair treatment of the writers producing the product they sold. The agents who represented the authors were likewise part of that process.

Unfortunately, that bargaining all too often came out in favor of the distributors. As I heard it described to me, the bookstores kept the lion share of the profits, while the author, agent and publisher basically divided up the small remainder. It was the needs and demand of the bookstores that moved books in and out of shelves in less than a year, that told publishers that if a book didn't sell they would have to ship it back and store it at their own cost, and that generally bent things in the advantage of the distributors. Writers are very often known as being poor, but I doubt the publishing company was the reason for it. It was likely the fact that the publishing company could only get so much out of the bookstore before they were simply turned down.

Now the internet has officially revolutionized the industry, almost on accident. Suddenly the bookstore is not the only place to find books. In fact, it's almost a second choice behind Amazon and other online stores, where electronic books and actual hardcopies by the thousands are available at the click of a mouse. The effect has been devastating to the distributors who have had a lock on the market for so long. Long invincible chains like Borders are literally vanishing almost overnight, and the publishing companies which had spent so long developing ties with those stores are suddenly left hanging in the wind, with the likelihood of unpaid bills piling up behind them. It's probably going to end up with a balance that favors writers much more heavily, but for the time being it's chaos.

On the Seventh Book

2011-08-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

Ah, Kingsley. Probably the best story ever formed by the mating of two alternative rock songs, an episode of Castle, and the quiet bother of an hour long commute.

Okay, so there were a lot more influences on the story than just that, but those were the main ones. It was one of those fusions of ideas that came together all at once, and I really couldn't argue with the result.

Basically, I came up with the idea for The True Adventures of Hector Kingsley while I was on my way home from work one night. At the time, things were a little bit stressful. I was now working at the emergency room, and at the same time I was starting to volunteer at a research lab in order to stick my toe into the water for that career path. I had discovered that Christmas with the family was not in the cards for this year, and I had already begun my time driving an hour to work and back. On top of that, Em and I had been working opposite schedules for about two and a half months, which was more than a little discouraging. All in all, I was stressed out, working hard and missing my wife.

Also at the time my wife was discovering her interest in steampunk. She had gotten into the genre by buying Leviathan by Scott Westerfield (curse you shiny cover, you were irresistable!). The genre was apparently the spiritual home that she had been looking for, and it was fun to watch her geek out over the various stories and styles she found. I found myself drawn to the genre as well, though for the most part I hadn't thought much about writing it myself.

Cue the Castle episode. It was a normal episode about a murder involving a steampunk club, but it was fun to hear the main character's description of the genre as a whole. It was something to the effect of "steampunk is a combination of the romanticism of Victorian times and the ingenuity of future design", which kind of resonated with me. After all, in those times you didn't need a research grant to do science, you just picked up a snail or something and said "How does this thing work?"

Then came the night that I was driving home, exhausted, and came up with the idea of writing a story in a universe where they had discovered something that brought out the inner side of people. Something that made monsters out of psychopaths and vampires out of addicts. Something that made wheels turn on their own and engines run without obstacle. The idea would only work in a steampunk setting, and the character I came up with to fit it was based on the song I had on in the car at the time. Hector Kingsley, investigator, came to life in all his sarcastic, stuffy glory.

I started writing a little bit at a time in the midnight hours when I got home. Little by little the story developed. A second song gave me Patricia Anderson, aka Mustang, and the story just took off. When I had enough of it down, I sent a bit of it to the writing group and found a pretty positive response. Encouraged by the reaction, I started to write a little bit more, eventually sprinting through the story in March to finish the first draft and taking most of May to do the second. It went from a story I was basically writing to enjoy myself and entertain Em to an actual honest to goodness novel, and is probably the best thing I'd written so far.

So go figure. Life is strange, but sometimes the twists it gives us are really, really good. :) Hope all is going well for you guys, and I will see you later!

Driving in Houston, Part Deux

2011-08-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

So the other night I was driving along, minding my own business, and eagerly getting closer to arriving at home for the night. Traffic wasn't too bad, which was wonderful, and I was able to drive at a pretty decent pace--below the speed limit of course (cough cough).

I saw a little motion in the cars ahead of me and looked over to find a car that seemed to be completely out of control. Not as in moving around a bit inside the lane out of control. I mean swerving completely across five lanes of traffic and nearly colliding with the concrete divider out of control. The driver literally pulled out of the swerve just barely in time to avoid a messy crash, swerved back into traffic and across two more lanes before finally settling into something resembling a sane driving course.

In the process, they cut off three different cars--one lucky guy got it twice--and scared the crap out of all of us. I've never seen an entire section of traffic look disapproving before, but you could almost feel the collective "What the crap are you doing?" in the air. The crazy driver slowed down under the sheer shame of it, and most of his fellow drivers accelerated to leave him safely in their dust. Drunk, asleep or just plain cracked out, at the very least they didn't sideswipe me as I edged my way past them a few moments later.

This has been another episode of why Houston drivers are awful and why my commute is terrible. I hope you guys are driving safe, and I'll see you around...hopefully.

On Supporting Good Causes

2011-08-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

So I find myself in a quandry. As some of you know, I really like webcomics. There are several out there that I enjoy, from Schlock Mercenary to Girl Genius (and yes, yours too Aneeka) and checking up on those stories has given me a little habit to enjoy as the week goes on.

My particular moral dilemmma currently has to do with one of the webcomics I read. The author actually runs a site with multiple comics on it, and some of them have become my favorites over the years. He speaks a lot on faith and heroism, which is something I always enjoy in my stories. He's also a super-conservative right wing Christian, which means that every so often he goes off on subjects that he finds threatening. Most of the time it is just some old fashioned humor, but occasionally he will drift into vitriol every once in a while. For the most part I had decided to tolerate his personal flaws and respect his work as an artist. In fact, I was actually planning on buying a bit of advertising space on his site, both to support him in his work and to promote my own work.

Things kind of took a new turn recently. The author of the webcomic also has a blog attached to his comics, and he has recently been posting an awful lot of anti-Mormon stuff. You know the kind--the creepily hateful websites with claims to know "actual" Mormon history, the old chestnuts about Mormon "secret" doctrine, the delightful distortion of half-truths for effect. It surprised me to see him not only posting it, but also advocating the material, basically acting as a parrot for these things when he could have been making the comics I enjoy.

I had always been aware that he wasn't necessarily a fan of Mormonism, which was something I could deal with. After all, many of the webcomics that I follow have authors whose viewpoints differ quite a bit from my own. The difference for me is between speaking up for your own views and spreading gossip and rumors about another's views. I had always been happy to hear about his faith, about the principles he believed in, because in a lot of ways they mirrored my own.

At the same time, I find it hard to support or read from an author who is actively spreading lies about my own beliefs, in a manner that won't permit reasonable discussion. I literally felt sick to my stomach as I watched the comment threads bascially denegrate into a pit of hate and bigotry, knowing all the while that any comment I would make would either be deleted or merely feed into the spirit of contention. Any intentions I had of buying ads on the site evaporated, and at this point I am wondering if it is even worth continuing to read his comics at all. It's not like I don't have other things to be doing, and I wouldn't want to approve of that kind of discourse about any person's faith, let alone my own. Given the political situation, we're probably only going to get bombarded by more of this stuff in the coming days, and the last thing we need is more.

So yeah, quandry. Let me know if you guys have any suggestions, and I hope you have a good week. See you around!

On the Sixth Book

2011-08-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

After Wolfhound, my next project was based on a new idea I had developed based on a dream I had. You may already see where this one went wrong.

My dream had me playing a game of Zelda. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but the supporting characters were urging me to get to the end of the level before the boss broke free and ruined everything. Lazy sod that I am, I kind of laughed to myself, mid-dream, and said "Silly people. The boss never gets free. He just sits there until I decide to beat the crap out of him."

When I woke up, it occured to me that a videogame where the boss does get free would be an interesting project. At the time I was still unemployed and games have always been a hobby of mine. So I decided to come up with a videogame where that aspect would be included. Along the way it kind of morphed into some kind of proto-MMORPG monster where players would attempt to build and defend a realm against the demonic monsters that would undermine and destroy it.

By the end, I had a pretty neat setting and background, but unless some interested millionaire stumbles along I probably will never get the chance to put it into production. Given how many successful companies already have MMORPGs out, and how risky it can be to start one (i.e. Tabula Rasa) I don't know if anything will come of it in the game arena.

Yet I had a setting and world built, so I thought why not use it in a story? At that point I wasn't sure I wanted to do a lot of science fiction yet, and the temptation to slip back into fantasy for a while was alluring. So I started the project, now known as The New Realm, and poured effort into it like water on a fire.

Thus began the dreadful experience of writing a setting story. It was awful. Characters changed names, back stories and abilities. Plot events shifted like sand beneath my feet. By the end of the story, I just wanted to finish the thing and be done with it for a while. Even now thinking of going back to it sends a ribbon of pain through my skull. By the time the story shuddered to a delightfully disconnected halt, I was more than ready to take a break after a while. New Realm has been officially shelved since I finished it, even though the occasional inspiration strikes to add some detail to its background. I might eventually go back and work on it again, but for the time being I have other more interesting projects to tinker with.

Still, it would make one heck of a cool videogame though...

On Running up Mother

2011-08-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, the post title will make sense eventually. I promise. :)

Back in high school, our track and cross country coach had a saying: "The longest distance you will ever run is the one between your ears." What he meant, of course, is that no matter how hard it is to run any particular race, the mental battle is the hardest part.

When he laid out our cross country course, Coach Cohen made sure it reflected that. Every part of the course carried its own particular mental challenge--from the start that took us right up a pavement hill to the finish that tricked hasty runners into a final all-out sprint half a mile from the finish line--but none of them were quite as painful as Mother.

Mother was a trail named for who knows what reason. Our course was filled with trails like that, from Ice Cream to JV, but I always tended to imagine that Mother got its name from the first half of the vulgar, instinctive reaction of the runners who first encountered it. The trail came about two thirds of the way through the three mile course and it started out easily enough. Just a short, mildly difficult incline that you had to run up before you reached a slight turn to the left. A lot of runners, especially those who hadn't run the course before, would sprint up that first little hill and make that turn, fully believing they would have no trouble reaching the top.

The turn was the trick you see. No sooner did you make that turn than a monster confronted you. It was a sharp, long incline that seemed to stretch on forever, and you could see every painful inch of it the moment you made the turn. I remember more than one competitor coming to nearly a dead halt the instant they were confronted with that sight, and I have to admit that I often looked forward to blasting past runners who had so overconfidently sprinted past me a moment ago. It was the ultimate test of your endurance and mental fortitude, and I think I will remember running it the rest of my life.

At this point in my writing career, I think I'm running up Mother all over again. I've made it a pretty decent part of the way through the set up phase. I've got three different novels, and I've set up a writing schedule that will let me get two more done by the end of the year. I know I write well, and I am excited to start breaking into the finish. At the same time, I've turned the corner and realized that it's still going to be a long haul until I start seeing profit and benefit from it all. It's daunting to think of everything I have left to do, and it makes me wonder if the Lord will help me last that long.

At the same time, though, Mother's the wrong time to decide to quit. The best thing I can do is push harder, make it to the top and keep going. Otherwise it'll all have been for nothing, and I'll have to watch some other dirtbag sprint by me as I putter around the trail. So, head down, arms pump, time to hit it hard. Cause, if there's one thing I learned from cross country, it's how to make it up a hill.

This has been your regularly scheduled philosophical rant. More interesting posts will return Friday. See ya!

August Update

2011-08-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Alright, here's the situation before I descend into the morass of writing that has consumed me lately.

You know that 3rd draft of Kingsley I was working on? It's done now, though I will still tinker with it. Thanks again to all of my alpha readers; your contributions were greatly appreciated. Next on my list is a query letter revision and a synopsis that I can send out to some traditional publishing agencies and companies. We'll give the regular market some time to take up the series before I go it alone with Kingsley.

Badger proceeds on schedule, despite constant interference from the opposing forces of over-motivation and procrastination. Distraction has made an occasional appearance as well, but we've broken the 50k mark as of last week, and I intend keeping the book on track for a Sept 10th first draft finish date. The story is going relatively well for a first draft, but I think I've grown to hate the clunkiness of my first pass at the stories I write. Compared to the much more improved version on the second run through, it just seems very much unfinished, which tires me a little. Oh well, such is the process of writing.

Iron Angels is still making its way through the writing group. I think I'll probably continue submitting sections until the first draft of Badger is done, and then revise a quick 3rd draft to prepare it for alpha readers. So far its going pretty well, so hopefully I didn't mess it up.

As for Wolfhound, we have cover art! Or at least, a sketch for it. It looks awesome, but I'm going to wait until it is more finished before I post it up for everyone. After all, I don't like people looking at my first drafts, so why would I do that to the artist? Just rest assured, its super cool! Also, with the 3rd draft of Kingsley done, I'll be switching to a quick 7th draft of Wolfhound in preperation for the copy edit.

In other news, Seraphina now has a neck, a hunger for rice cereal and a temper. Life is always getting more interesting... See ya!

On the Fourth Amendment: The TSA

2011-08-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

So, you can probably guess how this blog post will go.

The TSA, for those of you who don't use planes, is the federal enforcement agency responsible for airport security. Supposedly they've also been entrusted with the security of other passenger routes like bus systems and train stations, but their influence is a lot less clear there. The TSA is most known for the security checkpoints and screenings people go through on their way to commercial flights.

As further background, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of US citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. This amendment is what compels most law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant in order to search your person, your belongings and other such things, and even more especially, in order to be able to detain you and your belongings in the interest of the law. The warrant has to be issued by a judge, who must be convinced by the law enforcement agency that there is reasonable cause for a search/seizure.

Unless you're the TSA.

I don't mean to criticize the responsibility of the TSA to keep American flights safe. After Sept 11th, I doubt that anyone is ignorant of the threat to air travel by terrorists, both foreign and homegrown. Like most law enforcement jobs, it is probably a bitter, thankless job where you get treated to no end of irritated people who depend on you to guarantee their safety.

At the same time, I think that the TSA has taken a step too far. Their ability to unrestricted searches of US citizens goes far beyond the rights the Fourth Amendment has granted the government. They basically ignore the need to obtain warrants, to identify reasonable suspicion for frisk searches, and basically any kind of limit on executive power. It's gotten to the point that when the legislature in Texas tried to pass a law limiting the searches on travelers in Texas airports, the TSA threatened to shut down the airports completely. Basically, the TSA now has the ability to search any citizen without a warrant, confiscate their property without intent to return it, or even suspicion of criminal behavior, and then threaten the states of the Union with an air embargo unless they comply.

I imagine that the writers of the Constitution did not intend for any executive body to have that kind of power. They had already endured that kind of thing when England was conducting warrantless searches of their homes in order to find smugglers and rebels. Surely they knew, as we should have known, that granting any law enforcement agency that kind of precedent would lead to abuses.

And it has. There have been many reports of travelers harassed by TSA agents, theft by TSA baggage screeners, and worse. All in the name of security that, by all tests and accounts, the TSA isn't actually able to provide. Check after check of TSA procedures has shown them as ineffective in preventing bombs, guns, or other threats from boarding the plane.

All the while, the searches grow more and more invasive, and the restrictions of the freedoms of our citizens continue to grow worse. First it was removing shoes, then no liquids were allowed. Then we were occasionally required to get an X-ray photo of our body--basically a virtual strip search--or submit to an extremely invasive pat down. For those who think that the level of security we currently have will stop where it currently is, there is now talk of some terrorist groups supposedly trying to implant bombs surgically. How long before the TSA decides an actual X-ray will be needed to determine that nothing is tucked away in our stomach lining that could be a threat?

The saddest part is that the people who've provoked this response, the terrorists who have started this whole thing, are idiots. They're more likely to set their own underwear on fire than bring down a plane these days, and normally the private citizens flying with them are able to stop them short anyway. Yet they've managed to intimidate us into believing that this kind of violation of our personal privacy and our inherent rights is necessary to provide security when we travel.

I don't mean to make the lives of the people working at the TSA more difficult. I understand that most are just people going to work and doing their job, and that the whole thing is done under difficult circumstances. The fact is, though, that it seems like we're forgetting precisely who's in charge here. The TSA works for us, not the other way around. As much as the people who believe the TSA has been granted the authority by Congress to do this kind of thing would like us to forget it, the rights they are abusing are not somehow merely tolerated by the government, or granted to us by our benevolent leaders in Washington. They are inherent rights we enjoy as citizens, and when it comes down to it, neither Congress, nor any other branch of the United States government, has the right to suspend them.

There are threats to our safety, and terrorists have targeted our airlines frequently in their efforts to bring down our liberty. I know that as much as anybody else does. At the same time, there has to be a better way to secure our safety without giving up our liberty, or as Benjamin Franklin said, we will deserve neither. For my part, I would rather have my freedoms threatened and risked by a foreign foe than robbed from me by a tyrant close to home.

At least, that's my ranting opinionated stance. What's yours?

On the Fifth Book

2011-08-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

My fifth book is one that I've already discussed fairly often on this blog, and hopefully it will be the one I publish this December.

Wolfhound was a new experience for me in a lot of ways. With the exception of my aborted Star Wars fanfiction early in my attempts to write, virtually every story I had done had been fantasy genre. In fact, I had never really considered writing science fiction after that, even though a lot of my favorite authors wrote in the genre.

I guess in large part the decision to change things up came from the condition I was in at the time. My writing on Brellan's story had kind of stalled a bit, and I hadn't worked on Jakeson's book in months--almost years. It had not been the best of years for me. Graduation had kind of ended my time at BYU with a whimper instead of a bang, and our move to Houston had not turned up the opportunities that I had been hoping to find. Rejections from medical schools were coming in fairly regularly, and I began to question whether that was the type of career I wanted anyway. All in all my outlook on life was...well, let's just say it wasn't good and leave it at that, okay?

So in the middle of feeling a little lost and confused, I remembered something from my teenage years when things were, needless to say, better. It was kind of an obscure memory, but it was what I needed to have at the time. I had written a talk for church and it went fairly well. My dad had asked to see the paper I had written it on when we got home, so I gave it to him and walked into a different room. When I came back I remember my dad looking up from the page and saying to someone else "This is why he should be a writer!"

Not much of a memory, I'll admit, but my dad has something of an effect on me at times. I decided that since he had always been there for me before, I might as well give it a try as long as everything else was crashing and burning.

Starting out, I hit on the idea of writing a story about a hero along the lines of Captain Moroni. That kind of story would have to be science fiction, if only because fantasy doesn't fit that kind of character as easily from my perspective. The next idea was to have it on a ship modelled after the USS Constitution, a ship that has always kind of captured my imagination. With a name like 'Old Ironsides' how could it not? Bit by bit, the pieces came together for me, and I had the idea for a story. Jacob Hull's introduction to heroism and war was a pretty standard action adventure story, but I worked hard on it, and if I do say so myself, it turned out pretty well. Of course, once it's on Amazon you should probably buy it and find out for yourself... heh heh heh.

So that's the background on the fifth book. If only the sixth book had gone nearly so well... See ya!

On Juggling

2011-08-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I found myself unable to stay away from Kingsley for so long, and I've wound up revising the current draft of the book using the edits that people have sent me so far. I've been doing about one chapter a day, so I should be finished by two weeks from now.

At the same time, I've been sending sections of Iron Angels in for the writing group to tear apart. That story has surprised me by actually becoming interesting, to the point where my wife actually wants to actually find out what happens at the end. Her current favorite from me is still Kingsley, but I think that Iron Angels has kicked Wolfhound out of the number two spot. It seems likely that the romantic element is the reason for that, but lo que sera, sera.

While all of that is going on, I'm also plugging away on Badger. I think my feet have finally hit ground on the project. This part of Jacob's story moves a bit slower since there is less combat and more politics, but now we are getting to some of the exciting part. Time will tell if the sequel will demand as much revision as the original did. My hope is that I've managed to approve enough that it will not, if only to preserve some of my planned writing schedule.

That's what we're looking at so far, so prayers for support and sanity would be more than welcome. Believe me, I'm going to need them...

On the Sixth Amendment: Casey Anthony

2011-08-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Well, hopefully everyone already knows the background to this little essay. Casey Anthony was, at the very least, a very negligent parent whose actions eventually led to the death of her child. She was subject to a very public trial a la OJ Simpson where the prosecutors attempted to prove that she had murdered her child. After a very long media circus, the world was shocked when the jury found her not guilty.

The trial itself I won't get into, because I honestly didn't care enough to pay attention. The jury's decision was based on a lack of evidence presented by the prosecution, and while they might have convicted her of negligence, that wasn't the crime she was put on trial for. What bothered me was that in the aftermath, several people began to say that the trial was evidence that trial by jury was no longer called for, especially if it yielded such unjust results.

I think most people would hesitate to go that far, but there is a growing sentiment that juries are no longer the best way to give justice her due. Many people tend to think that juries are easily swayed to let murderers go free, or that they too often get hung up on technicalities, or that they are simply inconvenient for the rest of the populace to deal with. Many people seem to prefer the kind of justice you find on Judge Judy, where a single authority figure simple decides who was right and who was wrong without consulting a jury.

There are a lot of problems with that kind of a viewpoint. First off, trial by media is much, much worse than trial by jury at finding the truth, and for every sensational murderer that would be convicted rightly by a media circus, twenty innocent people would be convicted as well just to maintain ratings. The fact is, the jury had access to all the evidence, they had instructions to find her not guilty if there was a reasonable doubt, and there was a reasonable doubt that she did it. That meant that in spite of all the moral outrage that Fox, NBC or all the other networks could muster, the lady was found innocent. Whether that's the popular decision or not, that decision was a good one in the eyes of the law.

Second, trial by jury is by no means perfect. We all know that. The system has flaws, and occasionally a person will be wrongly convicted or unfairly escape punishment. The difference is that the jury is one of the few instances where the democratic whole of the United States makes its impact on the judicial process. Its the part of the court system that keeps the judge from being an autocratic tyrant, the lawyers from becoming wheedling lobbyists and the innocence of the defendent from being treated with arbitrary disregard. For example, as I understand it custody of children after a divorce is decided without a jury. It is also one of the more arbitrary judicial cases in our civil law today, where custody is determined almost on a whim.

Thirdly, the people who make up a jury are the same people who vote to elect the officials who run our government. If they cannot be trusted to use good judgment in court, then how can they be trusted to vote wisely? If they are not ready to participate in a jury for the good of a society, how can they still be considered ripe for a draft in time of war to defend that society? To abandon this part of the Constitution would be to abandon our trust in our populace to rule and judge themselves. To lose that trust would condemn any society to tyranny.

At least, that's my take on it anyway...

On the Fourth Book

2011-08-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so since I've already plowed through a description of the first three books in my writing history, I might as well go through some of the more recent stuff as well.

My last semester at BYU, I decided to take Brandon Sanderson's creative writing class. I ended up wishing that I had taken it both sooner and more frequently, since that class broke me out of the revision loop I was doing with Guardians of the Past. His main assignment in the class was that I needed to pick a new story and start writing it from the beginning, one section at a time. It meant that I had to write something that wasn't in Jakeson's world, which meant that it had to be entirely new.

The story I ended up with was Brellan. It was a fantasy tale in a slightly darker world where a group of evil magic users manipulated people with mirrors. Basically it was two parts fantasy and one part horror, with the main hero battling all sorts of monsters as well as his own issues to save an isolated little town.

Brellan ended up having a lot of problems. The pacing sort of got lost about partway through the story, which was a major problem because the tension dissipated as well. Brellan, the main character, did not get nearly enough development, and ended up fairly contradictory, and the villain didn't get nearly as developed as she could have been either.

The main problem, looking back on it, was that I tried to include too many types of horror at one time. Brellan was supposed to face fear of rejection, fear of being killed by monsters, fear of becoming a monster, etc. That took the story and Brellan's character in too many directions for it to work out. If I ever get the time, I need to go back and focus the story a bit more on one theme--probably Brellan's fear of being turned into a Mirrorwitch's tool--and run with that. I think it would resolve a lot of the problems of the book in general.

In any case, Brellan was finished the fall after we moved to Houston. There were several months between the end of school and the finish of the novel where I made only halfhearted attempts to finish it, but it wasn't until I started the fifth book that I became determined to bring Brellan's story to a close. Right now the story still exists in its third draft, waiting for me to find the chance to revise it up to snuff. Perhaps someday I'll get the chance...

On Steady Progress vs Leaps and Bounds

2011-08-01T10:41:00.001-07:00

So lately I've been plowing through Badger and I've actually managed to stay on schedule (wonder of wonders). I've made some decent progress, and the story has about 32k words at the moment. My current plan is to take it a bit easier for the next week before I start on a quota moderately more difficult.

Even though I've managed to make a little progress with the schedule I have, I've been heavily tempted just to go all out and increase my weekly quota to 15 or 16k words for a couple of weeks, and then downgrade to an easier schedule. It feels like the story is developing very slowly the way I am doing it now, and it gets frustrating at times, especially when I look ahead to everything that I have to do in the next few months. At the same time, that many words would seriously strain my capabilities, so it could be a very bad move.

So which do you guys think I should do? The slow and steady path or the sudden burst of speed? In any case, I hope that you are all doing well, and I will see you around!

On the First Amendment: Videotaping the Police

2011-07-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

So here's an issue that has been popping up more and more recently over the past couple of years. There have been a sudden increase in cases where the police, finding themselves being recorded by random passerby or by someone they approached, have decided to arrest somebody. For videotaping them. In public.

Now, I can understand why a police force would not want to have cameras around all the time. If you're setting up a drug bust or about to raid a hostage situation, you don't want some geek with an iPhone recording the SWAT teams' movements and streaming it to Youtube. That's about as common sense as not using our freedom of speech to yell fire in a movie theater. The rights of the first amendment are typically limited when we are actively endangering the safety and rights of others.

At the same time, I don't see any reason that a routine traffic stop or other every day law enforcement activity shouldn't be recorded. The police are in public. It's not like there's an expectation of privacy or something. In fact most police are probably already making a recording of the event, through cameras mounted on their cars or more recently smaller cameras that they carry. Some police will go on to sell that recording to shows that literally specialize in police stops, car chases or other things like that. I doubt that there is a satisfactory reason to be selling footage of such things to Cops, The First 48, and America's Wildest Police Videos when you aren't permitting your own citizens to make footage of the event on their own.

An argument that the right to a free press only extends to official news outlets is just as dumb. The press was never concieved to be limited to any particular set of people. Keep in mind that the men who wrote these amendments also campaigned for their freedom and then the Constitution as a whole by running off a bunch of pamphlets--the Revoluntionary War version of blog posts--and distributed them through the population. I doubt they waited to be recognized by the community at large as a news organization before they did so; otherwise the Federalist Papers would never have existed.

The only real reason to arrest these people--many of whom have been on their own property and not even really involved in the police action at all--is to avoid embarassment. Policemen are worried that some moron in their ranks is going to do something stupid, and the video will go viral. Such videos erode confidence in the police force and would lead to a less orderly society.

Of course, the best solution to something like that isn't to limit video of the police. It's to fire the idiots who screw things up for the good cops. Hiding the fact that police abuses exists only worsens the problem, which is why the Founders sought to guarantee the right to a free press to begin with. The ability to expose the corruptions of government officials, to talk about and share information without having to worry about what people in power would want, is critical to maintaining a free society. Compromising that right just to keep the police from looking bad is foolish and short sighted.

Or at least, that's my take on it. What do you guys think?

On Baking Pie

2011-07-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

Every so often my wife, who is an avid follower of Dean Wesley Smith's blog, yanks me by the ear until I read his latest post. He is currently running a series on dealing with myths around the writing profession, so it definitely applies to my current efforts to establish myself in the field. His articles are actually pretty helpful, so I recommend reading a few if you've got the time.

His latest post was related to how to make a living as a writer. Obviously with a subject like that, he caught my attention fairly easily. He basically pointed out that a novel isn't simply a single source of income. It can be broken up or combined to create new sources of income in several different ways. Single short stories can be combined to make anthologies, books can be sold overseas to foreign language presses, rights can be optioned to movie companies. By looking for those oppportunities you can turn one property into a fairly stable source of income that far outweighs the time you spend on it.

Of course, the catch is that I have no idea how to spread out that much. I don't have contacts in foreign presses, nor do I have the ear of Hollywood producers who would option my books. I suppose the first step is to get a story out there, but if I want to be serious about writing as a career, finding those contacts, either for myself or through an agent, will be crucial. How has any of you guys gone about doing that? Have any ideas? If so just let me know. Have a good week guys, and I will see you around!

On Fake Politics

2011-07-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

So Badger is turning out to be a very different book compared to Wolfhound. It has its own style and focus, which is strange because it has the same universe and many of the same characters. I'm used to switching between styles and stories, but it just seems strange to be keeping the rest of the stuff around.

One of the differences is in the amount of background I'm including. Wolfhound was a story that didn't delve too deeply into the history and political structures of Jacob Hull's universe. The characters were too isolated and too desperate to sit down and analyze the ideological conflicts that had shaped their situation. They were more focused on shooting pirates and dodging return fire.

Badger, though, has a bit more focus on the homefront. We get into the poltical background of the different factions, including the ones inside the Celostian Union. So far it's going well; I've managed to find analogues for the different groups in the material that inspired Jacob Hull's world. Still, I just hope I am not doing things poorly. The other problem that may be showing up is how little this comes into the first book.

Still, it should be fun. See you around!

On Crawling

2011-07-18T07:47:00.001-07:00

So Sera has officially advanced to a new stage of life. She is now trying to crawl. Not simply wiggling in a manner that might hint at crawling, she is literally fighting to move forward and then bawling when she realizes she hasn't quite got the trick of it yet.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to teach a baby to get up and go? Because unless she figures it out soon I am fairly soon she will not give any of us a moments rest. Hope all goes well for everyone, and I will see you around!

On Badger

2011-07-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

Well, the second draft of Iron Angels is finally complete, which means from here to the beginning of September my main project will be Badger, the sequel to Wolfhound.

It is definitely a relief to have finished Iron Angels. It is going to need a little more work, especially near the ending, but at the very least the draft is complete. Plus, I honestly need a little time away from that story right now.

Badger will be the first sequel that I've ever completed in my time as a writer. So far, it has been an interesting experience. I've been trying to identify things that a good sequel needs to be effective, and I've managed a short list. A character that represents a dark version of the main character has been one thing that I have noticed; another one is the need to show both the negative consequences of the previous books' triumph. A third thing would be the need to show the hero facing new, yet serious challenges to their journey as a hero, while another is to give them the temptation to leave their trials and just rest on their laurels.

I've come up with a way to include a lot of these things, but I'm always open to more suggestions. What aspects of a good sequel have you guys noticed in your careers as writers and readers? Let me know. I will see you later!

On Google+

2011-07-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I recieved an invite to join Google+, after some undignified begging and whinging. Turns out dignity is overrated; who knew?

Anyway, so far I am liking what I see. The whole concept of organizing people into circles really appeals to me, especially since I have a lot of different groups of friends who probably would not want to overlap. It seems to fit a lot better with how I socialize than Facebook. I don't want every post to be more or less like a giant speakerphone to my entire list of acquaintances and friends, and Google+ will allow me to narrow things down a bit.

The other features seem really cool as well. Hangouts will be a fun thing to dink around with, and the ability to set actual privacy settings really, really appeals to me. Call me paranoid, but I don't want every comment I post to my friends or writing group to get picked over by a prospective employer or co-worker. The fact that I can participate in a social network without having to sacrifice any kind of personal boundaries is actually quite liberating.

In any case, it seems like Facebook and Google+ will soon settle into different niches. Google will be for more active, daily posts, while Facebook will be for those rare, wide broadcasts you want to reach the ends of the earth. We shall see though. See you around!

On Slight Changes of Schedule

2011-07-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

Still working on Iron Angels. The ending seems to have telescoped out a little bit, but it is my hope that I can finish it off by the end of the week. At the same time I am still moving forward with Badger's first draft, but it is my hope that the overlap is not too severe.

On another note, we found a cover artist! My brother in law, Em's brother,has decided he would like to take up the project. We are incredibly lucky to have such a talented artist working on a cover for us, since Paul has already worked on quite a few projects. He even worked at Lucasfilms, which pleases my nerdy little soul. So that bodes well for Wolfhound's eventual publication. Now I just need to get the sequel done...

On the Second Amendment: Gunwalker

2011-07-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Alright, so full disclosure. I'm a pretty strong supporter of people's rights in the United States to own guns, even if I don't exercise that right for myself. It's always been my belief that the right to arm oneself is an expression of trust in one's citizens, trust that is critical when you depend on those people to choose your government representatives. The loss of those rights opens the way for tyranny, whether that of a foreign nation, a politician with influence over the official military, or some gang of punks down the way that the cops don't want to bother with. So I typically view any attempt to ban or manipulate the ownership of guns with a pretty jaded eye, even if I believe that the efforts are motivated by good intentions.

The recent news over Gunwalker, also known as operation 'Fast and Furious' at the ATF has not lessened my skepticism. For those who are experiencing grim feelings of foreboding, it's probably because the ATF is involved in an operation named after such a crappy, crappy movie, but that's besides the point.

The ATF is the federal organization in charge of enforcing the laws regarding alcohol and tobacco, along with guns and other weapons. If somebody wants a license to sell guns legally, they have to go to the ATF, presumably so they can make sure you aren't going to be selling them to criminals. If you want a license to buy a gun, once again the ATF will be in charge of making sure you aren't a felon or crazy person or something. If a state bans a particular type of gun, such as semiautomatic rifles, sniper rifles or other weapons, the ATF kicks down the doors and takes them. That's their job. Kinda.

You see, for the past little while the ATF has been forcing gun shop owners in Arizona and other areas to sell guns to gunrunners, who then sell them to the narcotrafficantes in Mexico. They likely threatened to take away the licenses for the shops--you know, the ones that supposedly mean you don't sell guns illegally--in order to provide sufficient leverage. The agents of the ATF watched through bugs, cameras and other means, while straw buyers walked into gun shops, purchased hundreds of semiautomatic weapons, sniper rifles and other guns, and walked out. They then traced the shipments to the border, but couldn't be bothered to continue their efforts after that. Mexico, who wasn't really consulted on the operation, has reported upwards of 150 deaths among their soldiers and law enforcement officers as a result of those guns, and at least two federal agents in the USA have been shot to death by them.

Let me repeat. While legal citizens of the United States have to literally take a suit all the way to the Supreme Court to own a handgun in Chicago, the ATF is funnelling guns to Mexican drug cartels by the hundreds. While someone is waiting days or weeks to recieve their concealed carry permit, the Zetas are getting their guns right away, all the better to kill mayors and police officers with in Mexico.

It's a common argument that strict gun control only keeps the guns out of the law abiding citizens, not the criminals, but does it have to be actual government policy? Seriously, how are we supposed to trust the government to regulate this stuff after this crap? When you have to honestly contemplate whether the senior officers of the gun control wing of the government need to be extradited to Mexico for gunrunning and felony murder, somethings horribly, horribly wrong, and I don't think the answer is 'more federal gun control.' Maybe that's just me, but I doubt it.

On a New Month and a New Story

2011-07-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

So here I am at the end of Iron Angels. I honestly think the story has gotten much better during this rewrite; at the beginning of it I could have sworn it was going to turn out like another New Realm, but now I actually have hoped for it as a story. It will be interesting to see if the writing group agrees of course, but we will have to see.

Now, however, it will be time to set that story aside to begin work on Badger in earnest. I already have the first chapter or so set up, and it already seems to be a fairly solid start to the book. Now I just need to back it up with some actual progress and hopefully a solid background provided by Wolfhound. We shall have to see if I can make the switch later on this week.

In the meantime, I just need to write my brains out over the next week and see what happens. Wish me luck!

On the 4th of July

2011-07-04T09:00:00.001-07:00

I don't know why but my family has never had a really strong tradition for the 4th of July. Maybe it was because fireworks were never all that interesting to us, or because we usually had plenty of barbecue at our house anyway without the 4th, but we never really made a big deal out of it. Not that we don't appreciate our nation, we just tended to show it a bit differently.

So it is a bit interesting to contrast that background to the excitement all around Houston about it. Parades are everywhere, flags all over. I'm pretty sure that if we were not in a drought situation there would be fireworks going off all over the place. To be truthful, I suspect that quite a few may be gong off anyway. We shall have to see...

On Spammers

2011-07-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

So apparently Amazon is being spammed with all sorts of illegal copies of books. Books that are copyrighted by other authors, for example, or books that had viruses attached or something. This does not seem like it will help my future plans. In fact, it seems like it will handicap new writers especially since those are going to be the writers who fall under the most suspicion, and whose work would suffer the most if it was stolen that way.

I have to wonder how Amazon will handle the situation. Will they Youtube it up and simply remove the spam as their users report it? Or will they start charging authors to publish their work, to discourage people from attempting shennanigans? Or will they simply start putting the books through a more thorough checking process?

How I would fix it is to watch the reviews posted by people who buy the book. If one is listed as a fake book, or one that has stolen content, they could withhold the check they were going to send until the matter is sorted out. That way they can count on the readers to alert them to misbehavior and protect authors whose work is honest, without having to institute some kind of labyrinthine verification process, publishing fee, or other intrusive process layered on top.

The solutions here are not going to be easy, though, so it will be interesting to see which Amazon will choose. My hope is that they do not discourage the people who are actively buying books, or writers who are publishing them. That way we can enjoy the harvest this new opportunity is giving everyone, instead of losing it do to a few annoying, pesky weeds.

What do you guys think? If you have a solution, let me know. Maybe we can brainstorm a way out of the mess together. After all, nobody wants these kind of people to win, right?

On Time Flying

2011-06-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Is it really the end of June already? It seems like just yesterday I was starting this month and looking forward to getting some of Iron Angels done. Now I am looking at finishing the second draft of Iron Angels and starting Badger. Kinda crazy how quickly life can change on you, huh?

Hopefully I can be a bit more focused and productive this next month. It should be interesting, but if I don't let myself get distracted or discouraged, we could have a pretty good headstart on my deadlines by the end. Here goes nothing...

On the Road to Progress

2011-06-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I seem to be making at least a little progress so far. We've managed to find a copy editor for Woflhound, and we are planning to start that process in August. Still looking for a cover artist, but I am hoping that we find one soon.

In terms of writing, I'm about one-half to one-third of the way through the second draft of Iron Angels. My plan for that book is to rewrite most of the rest of it this week, then finish up the remnants in the next couple of weeks as I turn my attention to a new project.

That new project will be Badger, the sequel to Wolfhound. For the first five weeks I want at least eight thousand words a week while I work on other projects like Iron Angels, a brief Wolfhound revision, and perhaps the third draft on Kingsley. After those five weeks, I'm going to ramp up to around twelve thousand words a week to finish the first draft by September 10th. At that point I will switch from Badger to the next book in the Kingsley series. The planned title on that one will be The Continued Adventures of Hector Kingsley: Murders in Whitechapel, and the plan is to finish it six thousand words at a time while I aggresively rewrite Badger, Iron Angels, and get Wolfhound ready for publication near December 3rd. Another side project for the December deadline would be a collection of Christmas short stories Emily and I would put up on Amazon. If the rewrite goes well enough, I might be working on publishing Kingsley around the same time as well. After that, it'll be a race to get sequels revised up to standard and write new books to follow them up. Here's hoping that particular run is effective.

So that's the plan as we see it right now. Any comments or advice would be appreciated. Outside of that,, I'll see you around!

On Finding a Cover Artist

2011-06-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

One of the first things I need to do to get Wolfhound published is to find a cover artist willing to do a cover. Unfortunately, I seem to be running into difficulties.

First off, it seems like nobody can agree on what cover art should cost. I've seen prices run from a thousand dollars down to around two hundred. So I have a hard time deciding what to offer people without sounding like I am trying to rip them off.

Second, I want something that looks good. Not just on a book cover, but on a thumbnail. That's part of the problem with self publishing; most people are just going to see the cover as a tiny image on Amazon, not as a full cover. At the same time, the cover art is important because it is one of the first impressions people will have of my book, so I can't just skimp on it and count on it to do well.

Third, I suck at negotiation and networking. Both are kind of the bane of my existance, and finding a good cover artist for the right price seems to involve a bit of both. Sigh.

Right now Emily and I have been thinking of turning to Concept Artists, both for the quality of work and professionalism. I would love to have a hand drawn image of the Wolfhound on my first cover, but I am still wondering if it will turn out the way I hope, and how much it will cost. Only time will tell.

In any case, let me know if you have found some good contacts to help me out. I could use the help, believe me. See ya round!

On When to Publish

2011-06-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

So I have been hammering out a tentative publishing schedule for the books that I have been working on lately. Sounds ambitious when I only have a few of them past the second draft stage, but it is better to have a goal ready than to wait on it.

Wolfhound is probably the first one to go up. I was thinking of trying to get it up by at least this December. By then, Kingsley will be in much better shape for a quicker release, and Wolfhound's sequel, Badger, will be in at least a third draft or so. Iron Angels will be in a third draft stage, and the second book of the Kingsley series will have a first draft done. So in tentative order, we would go Wolfhound Dec 2011, Kingsley Feb 2012, Iron Angels March 2012, Badger May 2012, Murders July 2012.

Then again, these are all still kind of tentative. In large part it will all depend on my ability to write a whole lot in the next few months, but we will see how it goes. Wish me luck everyone; I think I will need it. Let me know what you guys think about it, and I will see you later.

On Recovery!

2011-06-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Good news! I managed to recover the first draft of Iron Angels, along with the majority of my other files, from my previous, damaged hard drive. That means that I have all those thousands of words just waiting for revision rather than having to start from scratch.

Of course the question now becomes, what do I do with them? Should I finish out the first draft of Iron Angels, or continue with my second draft rewrite of the story? I think I am leaning towards the rewrite option, if only because I am planning on changing the story quite a bit at the beginning, and the ending will need to reflect those alterations. Plus, I've already started it, so there's that too.

In any case, it isn't lost forever! Huzzah!

On Writing a Sequel

2011-06-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Man, if there is anything that makes me want a story bible, it is the writing of a sequel.

This is something I've only partially attempted once before. On my mission I wrote sequel outlines for two books following the Jakeson storyline, and actually put a few thousand words into one once I got back, but it didn't get very far. I think I am now discovering why.

A sequel seems to be an entirely different beast from the first book. A first book has to worry about a lot of things, from the basic details of the world to the introduction of the main characters and their traits. The sequel doesn't have to worry about that, but it does have to worry about developing them further. So your character did a lot of awesome stuff in the last book. What's he doing now? How has he changed, or what could possibly challenge him after what he went through in the last book? How will he change further now that he has new things to face?

Even more intimidating is the fact that I now have to base everything on a foundation provided by the last book. I find myself constantly questioning whether a detail should have gone in Wolfhound, or if it is okay to put it in Badger instead. Were the characters and development foreshadowed enough in the last book? It has made me want to go back and do one more edit solely to provide that solid basis, though I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.

So in summary, this is a new experience that may or may not be driving me crazy. Anyone surprised?

On Minor Setbacks

2011-06-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

So as some of you guys might know, me and my little family just took a short vacation to go to a family reunion in Utah. I had taken my laptop along with the intent of writing the crap out of Iron Angels during the time off of work.THe first three days went wonderfully. I managed about 4k a day, and the end was rapidly looking to be closer than I had originally suspected. By the time I went to bed late Wednesday night, I had been convinced to readjust my writing plans to account for a finished first draft either last Friday or by the end of this week, which would allow me to begin work on Badger, the sequel to Wolfhound, before the end of the month. Things were definitely looking perfect.

Then I woke up on Thursday and sat down to start again. Fifteen minutes later, I realize that my computer still hasn't booted up and I feel the nagging sense of horror that all writers someday feel when they've made the mistake of not backing up files as often as they should. Long story short, I stand to loose about 45k of work if they can't do an effective data transfer today, which makes up a rather sizable amount of my progress over the last two months. Kinda depressing when you think about it.

Then again, perhaps this is just an opportunity to shift gears and change tactics. The first draft was going to need a thorough rewrite anyway, so why not get it done this way? Right? Right?

On Romance

2011-06-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Somehow, and without my prior knowledge, I have ended up writing a character story.

This may seem obvious to most people. After all, there are characters in every story, right? What I mean is that in this story, the main driving source of the tension is going to have to be the relationship between two of the viewpoint characters. This will be new to me.

Tension from mystery or plot twists is not a new technique to me. My characters, on the other hand, have typically been awful. Jacob from Wolfhound is a decent character, but the main tension from the story lies in the adventure he's on, not necessarily his character arc. Kingsley and Patricia aren't bad, in fact they are the best characters I've had, but the mystery provides the tension that drives their story. This time, in Iron Angels, Gabriel and Susan have to make the story work a bit more on their own.

That makes me incredibly nervous. How do I keep getting myself into these situations? At the very least the writing group will let me know how well--or how poorly--I manage it. Maybe I'll even be able to salvage it and it won't turn into New Realm, my least successful experiment to date. Sigh.

On Crying Babies

2011-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Man that freaking hurts... Seriously, it's like she angles the sound perfectly to echo around in my earhole. If this keeps up I'm pretty sure my hearing is going to be gone.

So if you see me on the street and say hi, but I dont hear you, you can thank Seraphina. Seriously

On Waiting for Alpha Readers

2011-06-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

There is a certain kind of horrible anxiety that seizes a writer who has just sent his book out to people for them to read. Are they enjoying it? Did that part suck so much they stopped? Are they recognizing your true, mad genius? Or have they scorned your life's work and tossed it into the gutter, never to see how truly special a find it truly was?

In my time giving people stuff to read, from Brellan to Wolfhound to other stories, I haven't had it quite this bad for some time. Maybe because this is the first readthrough and response I will get on Kingsley. Maybe I simply have fewer distractions this time to amuse me while I wait. Or maybe I've created the greatest book of all time so read it you guys!

Ahem. I will attempt to restrain myself now. Calmly. Calml--It's got plot twists and everything! Genius I tell you!

Sigh. It's going to be a long couple of months.