Out of the Loop

Well, the WorldCon is in full swing, and I'm not there. Not that I ever had serious plans to go, but it's in Anaheim this year, which is where I attended my first WorldCon 22 years ago. I have lots of memories of that con, probably more memories of it than of the other WorldCon I attended, which was just six years ago in Chicago. Next year's is in Japan, which I would love to attend, but certainly cannot afford, but maybe the year after that. It's an event worth doing every few years.

To clarify the post from a couple of days ago, I have never personally killed nor maimed a cat. But I will admit I don't much like them, which may be why I find stuff like BonsaiKitten.com funny (their site was down when I included this link - if it's still down, you can read about the phenomenon here and here and here and see a mirror of the site here). There's something about cats that makes their destruction and torture an acceptable subject for humor while the same cannot be said about dogs or snakes or even goldfish. You would never see a BonsaiPuppy website (unless some catlover ginned one up just because I said it couldn't be done). You would never see a dog equivalent of How to Kill Your Girlfriend's Cat. I don't know why this is, but it seems to be true, and it works for me.

Cold War Hilarity

I know this will probably get some animal rights folks all het up, but come on, it's cats. They deserve it.

Second Draft: The Countdown Begins

So I decided to start back up with the word counter thingie, except since I'm in the middle of a second draft that is growing quickly (and that I'm not rewriting from scratch), it's easier for me to do a page counter. Here's where I stand right now:

192 / 504 (38.1%)

To illustrate how different the second draft is, this is the corresponding place in the first draft:

153 / 466 (32.8%)

So I've fleshed out the beginning quite a bit. The manuscript is almost 10% longer than it was before. I don't know if the rest of the manuscript will grow at the same rate. I hope not. Then again, if I do still decide to go to Baen first, they want at least 100,000 words, and I'm still not there, so I've got room to grow without really needing to cut much more.

One cool thing I'm finding is that scenes that seemed sort of pointless or throwaway in the first draft are being rewritten to focus a lot more on the overall arc of the story and really draw out the conflicts between the characters. The second act wandered all over the map while I tried to find the storyline in the first draft. The second draft is much clearer and more focused.

Going Postal

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the event that gave birth to the phrases "going postal" and "disgruntled postal worker." Twenty years ago today, Patrick Sherrill went on an armed rampage at the Edmond, OK post office where he worked, killing 14 people and wounding six more before taking his own life.

I was working for The Daily Oklahoman at the time, so I was peripherally involved in the news coverage that day. I was grabbed early in the day to follow one of the reporters to the post office, because they needed radio-equipped cars to coordinate the coverage. I can remember riding back to the paper with one of the reporters, listening to other reporters on the radio telling about the people they were interviewing, relatives and friends and neighbors. One reporter in particular mentioned that Sherrill's neighbor, completely opposite of the old cliche about the neighbors saying 'he was always such a nice, quiet man,' could not say enough bad things about the guy.

I remember how the newsroom buzzed frantically all day, and how, about 10 minutes before I was supposed to go home, I got grabbed again by one of the editors and sent to Edmond to pick up a photo of one of the victims from her husband. I drove the half-hour out to the home, feeling awfully put out because this would keep me working for an extra hour at least. When I got there, the red-eyed husband handed me a Polaroid photo that had been cut in half so only his wife's face showed. I hesitated as I took it, and he asked me what was wrong. With my usual lack of tact, I mentioned that the resolution of the Polaroid was really not suitable for reproduction. He began to get upset, and someone else came and angrily told me to get out of there, so I took the photo and returned to the newsroom. The picture went out over the AP wires that night.

I really don't like myself sometimes.

That night, at home, I watched the local news of all three stations. One station billed the story as "Tragedy in Edmond," and had the local anchors interviewing Sherrill's sister on the living-room-style set of their morning show, all muted colors and hushed voices. "Did you ever get any indication that your brother was capable of something like this?"

One of the other stations had a blood-red graphic that simply said, "Massacre!" and interviewed Michael Bigler, one of the surviving victims, in a live remote from his hospital bed. "So where exactly did he shoot you, Mike?" asked the grinning anchor.

Bigler later recounted in an article in Guidelines magazine how God had saved his life that day. When Sherrill shot him, God told him to play dead. So Bigler lay still on the floor and didn't move, listening to the shots and screams as Sherrill continued to gun people down. And then the screams stopped. Then Bigler heard footsteps in the adjoining room, punctuated by occasional single shots. "He's shooting everybody again, to make sure they're dead," Bigler realized.

And God said, "Run."

Bigler then scrambled out the nearest door while Sherrill was reloading.

That day was actually my second experience in a newsroom frantically covering a breaking story. The first had been in 1985, when a fireworks factory blew up in Hallett, Oklahoma. But I wasn't personally involved in it like I was in the Edmond story, however peripherally. So the Edmond thing affected me more and taught me some things about myself that I didn't particularly like.

The novel rewrite continues apace. I'm over a third of the way through, and the second draft has expanded quite a bit so far. I've deleted some extraneous material and tightened up some of the dialogue, while adding quite a few scenes to make the timeline clearer and develop the characters and their relationships further. I've also added a lot of sensory descriptions for setting and atmosphere, so the characters aren't walking around in a bland gray void. I still don't know if the book will work as a whole, but I think it's getting better.

More Reality TV

So I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about Who Wants to Be a Superhero? It's a weird show, a combination of reality tropes and cheesy cheese. The thing is, sort of like The Apprentice, the show's biggest weakness is its centerpiece: Stan Lee. The attack dog challenge was awesome, but some of the others, like the prisoner interview challenge, have been either ill-conceived or just too simple and vague. In some cases, Stan The Man has had to grasp at straws in choosing which hero to dismiss.

For instance, Stan took one hero to task for making fun of another's costume. "Superheroes are supposed to make people feel good about themselves," says the man who introduced the concept of heroes who constantly bicker and fight in the Fantastic Four.

One challenge involved heroes ordering food in a restaurant and being seduced by a sexy waiter/waitress into giving up their secret identities. "The number one rule of being a superhero is never give up your secret identity," says the man who started a new era in comics by introducing superheroes whose real identities are common knowledge (the Fantastic Four, again).

And then there's Major Victory, a former male stripper who keeps getting chided by Stan about taking off his cape during challenges. "You'd never see Superman taking off his cape," Stan says. Well, apparently, Stan didn't read the same Superman comics I did, because Superman took his cape off all the time, wrapping Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen in it to protect them when he flew them to the Fortress of Solitude. Batman has also taken his cape off a few times, for instance, to fight a hawk or to duel R'as Al Ghul.

And perhaps most frustrating of all, whenever he talks to the superheroine Lemuria, Stan can't pronounce her name (although to be fair, no one else can, either), pronouncing it "Lumeria," except for the occasional voiceover.

I'm looking forward to the final episode, although I fear that Fat Momma, she of the doughnut utility belt, could well win it all, which would just be wrong. I would rather see Feedback win, although he has crazy-ass long mutant arms and is taking all this way too seriously. But he's got the best costume, he's a martial artist, and he plays the game well.

Working Up My Courage

So I mentioned a while back that I had this idea for a magazine that I would never produce. And then I got a favorable comment about the idea. And then I went to ArmadilloCon and met several small publishers, some of whom, like Chris Roberson and Monkeybrain Books, are putting out some awesome product (I really want the Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana and Superhero: Origin of a Genre). And I'll stop geeking out about Monkeybrain now, I promise. Seriously, you guys.

So I started thinking more about it. I have quite a lot of it in my head. I know vaguely how I want it to look. I know what kinds of stories I want in it, and how I plan to sell content and pay contributors (a different scheme that I don't think anyone has tried before, although Universe is similar in some respects). I have a couple of ideas on marketing, but not enough. My big problem now is numbers; when I sketch out my idea of what an issue will be and translate that into costs, and then I look at what kind of response I have to have to get that back, it's pretty scary. And the one thing nobody can predict is how people will respond to something new.

One thought I've had is trying what I call Issue Zero, something about half the size of my eventual goal, and seeing what kind of response I get. I'm not going to go into details here. If you want to know more, email or comment me and I'll give you the big picture.

I'm Back

ArmadilloCon Day 3:

I was entirely too bright-eyed on Sunday. I'd expected, from that first panel on Friday, that this would be an ultra-party con, but it was not so much (or maybe it was, but the parties all revved up after I left). They seemed to anticipate big party action on Saturday night, else why delay the panels until 11 a.m. on Sunday? Which is not to say there weren't parties when I left Saturday night, but just a couple.

Went to a couple of good panels on Sunday. One, on 19th Century Fantastic Fiction, was very informative, and I came away with titles of several things I want to look up and read. The other one was on Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan. This is the 100th anniversary of Howard's birth, and they're planning big doings at World Fantasy Con this year (also being held in Austin). I won't be there, both because it's during November Sweeps and because I can't afford it. But this panel was good and informative, and once again, I came away with some titles of things I need to hunt down and read.

I've only ever read one thing by Howard, a Conan novella in some anthology I can't remember (I'm sure I've got it packed away somewhere). I remember sort of dreading it before I tried to read it, just because I anticipated some muscular but dreadfully clumsy pulp prose. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the writing was. Not perfect, but better than I'd anticipated. I'm in a reading phase right now (currently reading A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo - in this first book, at least, he's obviously knowledgeable about the military, but the prose and characterization are clunky, and 5 chapters in, I'm getting impatient for the action to start), so I want to take advantage of it by reading some classics as well as new stuff.

I'd planned to attend another panel at 3 p.m., on using current scientific discoveries in writing, and attending the legendary Howard Waldrop reading after that (I heard him recite the opening sentences to the story in the first panel of the con, and it sure sounded intriguing), but about 2 p.m., I decided I'd had enough and decided to beat feet for home. The drive was mostly uneventful, except for traffic jams in Austin and Fort Worth. I listened mostly to music rather than talk radio.

When I left Tulsa, gas here was $2.95 a gallon. When I got to Austin, it was $2.84 in places. As I was driving back, I made sure to refill before I got back home, so I could save that 10-ish cents a gallon. Got back here and discovered that gas was $2.75. Doh! It dropped 20 cents a gallon here while staying basically the same in Texas. And the weird thing was, while I was on the road, I was hearing news reports that gas had hit an all time high, with the lowest gas in the nation costing $2.82 in North Carolina or someplace.

Anyway, I'm back, and I even got some novel work done while I was gone. I also got bored at the friend's house while I was waiting for the Mobile Command Center to recharge, so I got out their copy of The DaVinci Code and started analyzing the structure. The book is clumsily written on a prose level, to be sure, and you can pick it apart endlessly on its errors of fact and its wooden characters. But on the structural level, where it introduces mysteries and weaves together parallel plotlines as it doles out small answers and clues while deepening the mystery further, it's actually pretty sophisticated. If I could do that with Hero Go Home, I might have a page-turner on my hands. I only got through about the first tenth of the book, but I think I learned some things that I might try to apply on the third draft of Hero Go Home (and there will be a third - I'd hoped to clean it up sufficiently in the second to submit it, but I can already tell it will need further polishing).

Day 2

ArmadilloCon Day 2:

Wow, long day. Went to several panels, including one on editing, one on comics, a really fascinating one on small press publishing, a fun one on King Kong and giant apes in general, one on finishing a novel manuscript, and one on on-line publications. I also did some math and realized I had economized enough to buy at least one book. I bought a copy of an anthology titled Adventure, edited by Chris Roberson (whom I mentioned yesterday). He liked the "Whack a Monkey" shirt, and asked me to send him one of my stories. If he likes it, he'll keep me in mind for his next anthology project.

The capper of the day was the evening's performance in lieu of a dance. At Conestoga, they have a costume contest and a play during the judging. The play itself has been hugely entertaining the two years I've actually watched it. It is written by members of our local writers group, and is generally hilarious, due to its script, but also to the rather embarrassingly amateurish performances. A Penguin Playhouse production is neither smooth nor rehearsed, but the way the players deal with cheaply-built props falling apart, blown lines, missed cues and other disasters is part of its charm.

The performance at ArmadilloCon was the polar opposite of the Penguin Playhouse. The show by the Violet Crown Radio Players was slick and smoothly rehearsed. It was an onstage performance of a radio play, with a small band, a crew of voice actors and sound effects being performed live. They did King Kong, and it was hella cool. It made up for the disappointment of not having the Baen crew here. I have met four other Baen's Universe authors, but there was no official presence, so that was kind of a bummer. However, the other benefits have made up for it. I'm having fun, and there's still one more day to go.

So Yeah, Okay, I Went

ArmadilloCon Day 1:

So I came down yesterday. Eight hours of driving, sipping Diet Coke and listening to AM radio (the AstroCruiser does not have a CD player). Heard Air America for the first time. I was able to listen to about 10 minutes of it before I started screaming at the ignorant host-chick, who was prattling on about how the neocons don't understand the "peace process." Then she started explaining the peace process in terms that would make the Underpants Gnomes proud.

Step 1: Israel withdraws its forces
Step 2:
Step 3: Peace

Turned off the radio before I blew a blood vessel in my head, causing me to go blind in one eye, causing me to lose depth perception and smash into a road barrier at one of the ENDLESS road construction sites.

Went to the hotel at about noon today. Registration wasn't supposed to open until 1, but I was getting tired of sitting around my friend's house. Spotted the hotel from the freeway: easy. Found a road route to actually get me to the hotel: not so easy. Looked for the entrance to the hotel's parking structure: nearly blew another blood vessel in my brain. After a brief fit of rage and FOUR LAPS around the block, I talked to the con staff and figured it out, then discovered that there was literally nothing to do until, like, 5 p.m. Even the dealers' room didn't really open until four-ish, which brought me back to remembering why I've always been kind of take-it-or-leave-it with cons, at least until Conestoga this year, which I loved.

If you aren't actually a guest of the con, there will be long stretches where you have nothing you want to do, but you don't want to leave, because it's such a pain in the ass to leave the hotel and navigate your way back. So along about three, four in the afternoon, I started thinking I might have made a big mistake coming here.

Then I attended the "Welcome to ArmadilloCon" panel, which made me think that maybe this would not be like any other con I'd ever attended. I've attended a few cons in my time, mostly in Oklahoma, but also in Nebraska and L.A. and Chicago, and even one in Austin (a NASFIC 21 years ago, God, has it been that long?). I have never been to a panel where the moderator pulled out a huge bottle of gin and said, "Who wants martinis?" followed by another panel member saying, "If you don't like martinis, I've got Shiner Bock and barbecue ribs." I was worried about my food budget here, but I had a chili dog in the Con Suite, a rib at the opening panel and some crawfish in the ApolloCon party. I may actually save enough money on food that I can buy a book if I want to, and there are some books in the dealer's room that I really want.

Met a member of my online writing group in person (the first such I've met). I also met Julie Czerneda, a fellow Universe author, as well as Elizabeth Moon, who writes military sci-fi (I have not read any of her books yet, but they will go on my list soon). And I talked comics with Chris Roberson, who has written a book called Paragaea: a Planetary Romance. I don't know if the book is any good, but it has one of the coolest covers I've seen in years.

I'm still kind of on the fence about whether this will be worth the trip. I don't know, for instance, if there will be an official Baen's presence tomorrow or not, but I am ready to schmooze if there is.

During the down times, I've been working on the second draft. It's really eating at me; I thought the second draft would be much easier than the first, but I've felt kind of adrift. I read through the revised first act. When I read the first draft, it was like, "This has some cool energy, but structurally, it's a mess." Now it's like, "The structure works a lot better, but the prose feels dead." Dang it, when did writing get so hard?

Kind of Boring Discussion on Rewrite Goals

This may not interest anyone, but once again, it helps me to write it out.

The novel rewrite is proceeding. I'm done with Act I. I don't know how much better it is (if any), but it's longer by about 25%, and that's with at least two short scenes cut out. The basic problems I tried to address: introduce some major characters and their motivations earlier, give the protagonists and their relationships a little more time to breathe (the first part of the first draft was a NaNoWriMo project, so it was a little breathless, with major story elements elided), flesh out the generic first act climax with detail specific to the setting.

Since the first act climax takes place in Phoenix, I hit up an online acquaintance for help. He came up with some pretty good ideas, but in the end, I decided not to use his suggestion, setting my big action set piece not on Camelback Mountain, but in Patriots Square Park downtown.

Moving on to the second act now. The second act has different problems, mostly caused by my wandering around as I tried to find the storyline and fill time between the end of Act I and the Act II climax. Major goals here are much the same as in Act I, only more so: eliminate the extraneous elements and false starts, the scenes and subplots that end up going nowhere, while fleshing out the parts that push the story forward. First reader reaction to the Act II climax was that it felt a little rote. This says to me that I emphasized the action too much, while losing track of the emotional connection to the characters. Goal: play up the emotions more while still retaining the big explosions.

Mobile Command Center: The Verdict

The first act, second draft is finished. Much of the rewriting was done on the Mobile Command Center (aka my New Toy) . So now that I've had two weeks to break it in, how does it stack up to my expectations?

On balance, I have to say it's working better than I'd expected.

The negatives first: even though the T/X has a bigger screen than most other Palm devices, the screen is still small and hard to read sometimes. Although the resolution can be adjusted, it sometimes changes unexpectedly, and I'm not sure why. I get a lot mistyped characters on the keyboard, more it seems than on a regular keyboard, because the sensitivity of the keys seems to vary or something (it communicates with the Palm via infrared rather than plugging in). Also, using the stylus as a selection tool, rather than a mouse, is frustratingly imprecise. And I have occasionally gotten a lot of typos introduced as artifacts during the synchronization process; I think it has to do with the translation between regular Word files and Word To Go files. And the battery life is not as great as I might like between charges.

Now the positives: I'm finding a lot more time to write than I'd expected. When I bought the MCC, I was planning to use it mainly as a tool for typing in bars on the one night a week or so I go out. Instead, I find I'm working during my lunch hour almost every day, which means I'm being a lot more productive than I'd planned. The ebook function is getting a lot more use than I'd expected, also. Depending on my mood, I might spend my lunch time reading a couple of chapters (currently Stars/Over/Stars, the sequel to Black/on/Black), or writing a couple of pages, or doing a little of each if I have time. I'm loving the flexibility. The keyboard is not perfect, but the keys are almost full-sized, so it's not as difficult to type as I'd thought. And I like the fact that I can either edit the full MS or start a new document to write a self-contained scene to drop in later.

So on balance, although it's not perfect, I think I'm going to get good value out of the Command Center. Now I've got to get back to work.

Second Draft Blues

So I'm approaching the end of the first act in the rewrite, nowhere close to the pace I wanted to set, but not bad, considering. The thing is, although the draft is cleaning up okay, I don't know if it's actually going to work. The book has good parts, but I'm having one of those crises of confidence, where it feels as if no amount of polishing can fix the deep problems with basic structure and the book's overall storyline/character arcs. I should finish the first act rewrite by this weekend. I think it's better, but I really have no idea.

I've got a place to stay in Austin, but still don't know for sure if I'm going. Stupid Alaska pipeline. Gas alone for the trip will be over $100 (don't know how much over, but probably close to $110 total). So I'd be in for $150 just in gas and con registration fees, before I've eaten a single meal, or bought so much as a paperback from the dealers room. Are the networking benefits worth it? Of course, there's no way to know until after I've done it.

Miscellaneous Crap

Went running yesterday. I've been trying to get back into running for over a month. For some reason (probably a mix of infrequent training, low carb diet, and killer heat, plus maybe just getting damned old), yesterday was the first time in this training cycle that I've been able to complete the entire 2 1/2 mile course without stopping to walk. Usually I bounce back to being able to run the entire distance after one or two break-in runs, but this time, it's taken weeks.

I saw Stan Lee's "Who Wants to Be a Superhero?" on Sci-Fi last night. I love reality shows anyway, but this one was especially fun. They had to complete a challenge by fighting off attack dogs while trying to advance 50 yards or so to a door. A couple of the guys succeeded by simply carrying the dogs (which had latched onto the sleeves of their protective garments and hung there like furry icicles). One really big guy who's a bouncer in real life carried the dogs almost all the way, then fell about a foot from hte door and quit. The women all got taken down by the dogs really quickly and quit, except for the last girl, Monkey Woman, who fought with the dogs for almost 10 minutes (!) and managed to drag herself all the way to the door and complete the task, the only one of the women to do so. Now that's a hero.

The coolest twist on the show was when they kicked the bouncer off, only to redesign his costume and turn him into a supervillain to challenge the remaining hero candidates.

I washed the "Whack a Monkey" shirt tonight. I didn't read the care tag and dried it on high instead of low. I think I shrank it, but it looks like it will still fit. I'm telling myself that I can make it to ArmadilloCon. I emailed someone today to see if I can stay with friends down there. I've also been approved for vacation days during FenCon in September, if this con doesn't work out.

The Mobile Command Center is turning out to be pretty handy. Although I bought it for use in bars, I've used it almost every day this week to write during my lunch hour. If I can turn that into a regular ritual, I'll get a lot more writing done this year than last, and finish the novel in decent time.

Working for the Man vs. Entrepreneurial Drive

I said some things in yesterday's post that could be construed as disparaging to the small press and those authors who publish there. This is the flipside of that, another aspect of my dilemma, if you will.

When the Wife and I were dating, I remember one time we were discussing something about the future and she said something about how she wished I could get a really good job with a company that I could stick with for a long time. I objected to that, because it was never an ambition of mine to be a corporate man. She and I were brought up in different types of households, understand. Her grandfather and her mother both worked for rather large companies, and had worked for the same company for basically all of their adult lives. On the other hand, my father owned a jewelry store, his father and brother were independent farmers, my stepmother was a florist and my stepfather was a partner in a construction equipment firm, for a while at least.

So she came from a family of company folks, and I came from a family of entrepreneurs. It's not surprising that we looked at the issue from different directions. Now I'm in my forties, and I've been a company man for several years (although with different companies). I still think it would be cool to be my own boss, but like those folks who say they want to write when what they really want is to have written, I don't know that I have the mindset to be a successful entrepreneur.

And this is the thing about the small press. Say what you will about Yard Dog (which I mentioned yesterday) - the lowbrow humor and the amateurish production values and the cheesy marketing techniques - but they have managed to survive through some really tough times for ten years now. They've grown and built a core audience, and they've managed to collect a stable of authors who are willing to jump through hoops to publicize their books.

And the thing is, if it weren't for entrepreneurs like Selina Rosen, one of the driving forces behind Yard Dog, we wouldn't get the new blood that the publishing industry needs. If the Big Three or Five or Seven publishers were the only game in town, who knows how much good work would go unnoticed?

But it takes a special type of person to lead that charge, and I don't think I'm it, as much as I might want to be. I've got this idea for a fiction magazine, something like Baen's Universe, only with a bigger emphasis on adventure and not limited to SF/F, something like the old Argosy, only pitched at the same audience as Maxim, say. A magazine full of fast-paced adventure and rowdy humor. Frankly, I first thought of it as a way to market the stories I've written that don't seem to fit the existing markets, considering the big magazines are looking for serious literary stuff and the small magazines are mainly looking for dark stuff. Nobody seems too interested in a romp for its own sake, and that's what this would be. In fact, I even call it Romp!

I think it could sell, and my limited experience combing the slush piles at Baen's and picking winners (defined as "stories I liked that ended up being bought") makes me think that I could do a good job editing it. But will I ever try?

Probably not. Like I say, it takes a special type of person to want to take on the challenges of publishing a magazine and trying to get it marketed, and I just don't think I'm it. I think, as much I may have denied it years ago, that I've now thoroughly become a company man. I demonstrated that pretty definitively with Blue Falcon, which I hardly dared to market at all once it was published. I'm content to write and cash the checks, and let others go through the heartburn of publishing. Which disappoints me a little, but there you are.

Lake, Drake, Eudaly, McQuay, Wooley and Me

Apologies in advance if this is too long and rambling, but I'm trying to work some things out.

In yet another example of the synchronicity which seems to permeate my life, I happened to run across this blog entry by Jay Lake on the same weekend as Conestoga, and it has me reevaluating my life and work. I had already been nibbling on the edges of this idea, by applying for a writing job in the previous week, but this has all come together on me in the last couple of days, so forgive me while I type it out so as to sort it out in my head.

The blog entry: the thing that prompted it was a discussion within an online writing group (of which I am a member) that has run for several days, debating the value of sales to semi-pro markets (markets with miniscule readerships that pay less than 3 cents a word). On the one side, ably represented by Mr. Lake here, you have the people arguing that for many writers struggling to build a career and a reputation in a shrinking small fiction market, any sale is cause for celebration. On the other side, you have the more ambitious neo-pros arguing that time spent pursuing sales to tiny zines for tiny pay and no eyeballs is time that could have been spent working toward a more productive end.

Conestoga: David Drake sits next to Rhonda Eudaly at a panel. David Drake is a seasoned pro, a very successful author with a career spanning decades. Rhonda Eudaly is a vivacious up-and-comer with several short story credits, and a fixture on the Texas/Oklahoma convention circuit. Eudaly is currently fighting tooth-and-nail to sell 300 copies of her latest book to win a bet; to Drake, only 300 copies sold would be an abysmal failure. So there's Eudaly, performing a ritual of the modern-day convention circuit author, setting up a wall of books in front of her as a big billboard advertising what she's got for sale. And Drake looks at her and says, "What are you doing?"

She explains that she's setting out her books so people will know what she's written. And Drake says something like, "I've written lots of books, but you don't see me setting them in front of me." (Or maybe he didn't say it but only shook his head or something-I was there, but not paying close attention, but Eudaly talked about the incident more than once on other panels).

Her feeling, of course, was that he didn't have to, because he's David Freaking Drake, but people who are still struggling to make a name for themselves must promote themselves more actively. And I see her point, I really do. But at the same time, I found myself feeling rather sad for these struggling writers, setting their stacks of low-budget stapled chapbooks with amateurish covers face out on the table in hopes of convincing one of the ten or fifteen people attending the panel to pick up a copy. It seems like a lot of effort for miniscule return, effort that could be more profitably spent improving their craft and their product.

Which is easy for me to say, with my one (1) sale to an on-line market, and my one (1) self-published POD novel turned face-out on the table right alongside theirs, when it's not gathering dust in my office not being sold to or read by anybody. But I wonder if the so-called snobs and elitists in the writing group aren't onto something, which is (if I may paraphrase) that thinking small leads to acting small, which leads to small returns. If I want to be the David Drake on the panel, perhaps I shouldn't follow the Yard Dog crowd in hyping and pushing $5 chapbooks and POD novels (which I so far haven't done). At the same time, I should probably stop pretending that I have unlimited time in which to make my mark, and start pushing hard to get more and better product out there.

My big soulsearching dilemma is that I have known two novelists pretty well (I know more now, since joining OSFW, but I'm speaking of years back). The late Mike McQuay was a science fiction novelist I knew back in OKC. He cut his teeth on work-for-hire Mack Bolan novels and movie adaptations, then moved to science-fiction books under his own name, won some awards, and in the later phases of his career moved to political thrillers. He signed some lucrative contracts in his career, but never really sold enough to justify his high advances, and his career slumped badly toward the end of his life. His most successful book (and his only hardcover release) came out after his death in 1995. He was a tremendously intelligent man, who had managed the feat that so many writers only dream of, which is that he supported himself solely through writing novels. But he was a profoundly unhappy man at the end, I think.

Through Mike, I met John Wooley, a writer for the Tulsa World who has also authored several novels, both by himself and in collaboration with Ron Wolfe. John has worked continuously in all sorts of media for years: he has scripted TV movies and documentaries, written novels and magazine articles and non-fiction books and stage plays and comic books, put out a CD with a garage band and hosted his own radio show, in addition to his duties at a daily newspaper. At one time, I mentioned to McQuay that John was writing copy for a set of (I think) Betty Page trading cards, in addition to his comic book endeavors. Mike made a face and said, "John's always knocking himself out doing all these little projects that never make him any money."

So yeah, if they were sitting together at a con, the '95 Mike McQuay and the '06 John Wooley, McQuay would probably be the Drake at the table and Wooley would be the Eudaly. But Wooley would be the happier man, getting paid (however little) to do what he really loves.

So the questions I've been asking myself today are, what are the chances that I can become a Drake, or even a McQuay (supporting myself solely by my writing, to the point where I don't have to jump through hoops trying to sell a couple hundred copies of a small press book or content myself with sales to tiny webzines that pay one cent a word and have a subscriber base made up almost solely of other writers wanting to sell to that same webzine)? Am I willing to commit myself to the effort and sacrifice it will take to achieve such a goal? If I am willing, what are the best steps I can take right now to put my feet on that path?

I'm guessing one of those steps will be setting aside time (at least an hour) to write every day, rather than the sort of casual "when I feel like it and I can get out of the house" that I'm doing now. I'm starting to do that a little by carrying the Mobile Command Center with me to lunch. I've managed to write two weekdays in a row now, which is sort of unusual, actually. But I'll need more than 20-30 minutes stolen out of my lunch hour if I intend to make a serious change.

So that's my first goal: establish a writing schedule that allows me to get some serious writing done every day.

A little over a week till ArmadilloCon and I haven't figured out precisely how to raise the money to go, yet, but I feel as if I need to go. I've set aside the vacation time, and they say it's one of the best literary cons in the Southwest. I need to get my name and my face out there, and it couldn't hurt to start by being seen with the Baen contingent visiting Austin. I just need to figure out how to pull $200 out of my ass. I'm starting to regret having bought the Mobile Command Center, because I could really use that money right now.

OPW Pimping

I'm going to take a moment to pimp some Other People's Work, both because it's good stuff, and because doing so could indirectly help me as well. Here's the deal:

Baen's Universe Issue Two is now live. That means my story is no longer in the active issue, but in the archives. If you've thought about subscribing, but have held off because you didn't know what kind of value you could get for a $30 subscription, try this:

The first issue contained 22 short stories, including a Laundry story by Charlie Stross, a Tran-Ky-Ky story by Alan Dean Foster, a Hammer's Slammers story by David Drake, along with excellent stories by Gene Wolfe, Greg Benford, John Barnes, Elizabeth Bear and ME! It also contains the beginnings of 3 serialized novels by guys like David Brin, John Ringo and Eric Flint.

The second issue contains 16 short stories, including a new Dune short story by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, plus stories by L.E. Modesitt, Catherine Asaro (I'm not familiar with their series, but these stories do fit in with them), Cory Doctorow and Esther Friesner, plus some awesome stories in the Introducing Section: kick-ass military SF by M.T. Reiten and William Ledbetter, plus a great story called "Technical Exchange" by Kevin Haw that I had the great pleasure to read in the slush pile. All this, plus the continuations of the 3 serials.

By contrast, the three issues of F&SF that I picked up from the freebie table at Conestoga contained a total of 21 stories (of which 6 were technically novelets, but then again, so are some of the Universe tales). Which is not to put down F&SF, but to say that Universe gives you a lot of bang for your buck: two to three times the number of stories you get in an average issue of F&SF, with no ads. And they're downloadable in a variety of formats with no copy protection. I have an HTML copy on my desktop and a Mobipocket version in the Mobile Command Center, so I can read them on the go.

Universe is a noble experiment that deserves to succeed. I understand that they had an excellent initial response from Baen regulars when they first announced their subscriptions, but in order to succeed, they have to move beyond just their own regular audience. I realize that, out of the average of 6 people a day who read this blog, most of you either have subscriptions already or have decided not to subscribe. But if you're on the fence, please take a chance and subscribe. They are working hard to make science fiction fun again, and I would hope we can all get behind that.

In other news, I need to come up with a way to raise about $200 in ten days to make it to ArmadilloCon.

Just In Time... NOT!

So guess what came in the mail today, one day after Conestoga has ended? That's right. The "Whack a Monkey" T-Shirt.

So now here's my dilemma. I've already taken vacation days in two weeks, the weekend of ArmadilloCon in Austin, TX. Problem is, I ended up spending more money than I expected at Conestoga, and not making any back by, say, selling copies of Blue Falcon (not that I tried very hard, really). But as I'm not an invited guest, the chances are even slimmer that I could really get any immediate financial benefit from a visit to ArmadilloCon.

But on the other hand, there will be Universe events that I could attend, and hopefully help the magazine with its publicity efforts (by, say, wearing the "Whack a Monkey" T-Shirt, among other things). I could meet industry folks who didn't make it up to Conestoga and make valuable connections. On a personal level, I could hang with some cool people that I currently only see, like, once a year. I could squeeze out some money to go, but it would be a rough time. Is it worth the investment?

Guest Starring: Tony Frazier

Conestoga's over. It was my first convention as an invited guest, and I had a blast.

Cons are weird animals, because the first day is all sort of set-up and prelude. There are a few activities, but it's mainly just opening ceremonies and a couple of practice panels, followed by parties. This con was weird, because although I went to a couple of parties, I did not drink at all Friday night, and only a little Saturday. Saturdays, everything gets into full-swing, day and night. Sundays, everybody's exhausted and (for some) hung over, and the con is ending soon, so everything feels low-key and brittle. And then you go home.

Friday, I got to the hotel about an hour before registration was due to open because of a childcare snafu. Walked into QT to get breakfast and ran into K.D. Wentworth, who said, "They need help setting up the art show." So I got "Hey, you"'d into service before the con actually started. After I'd helped them hang up some art, I went to registration to check in and ran into Paula Goodlett, assistant editor at Baen's Universe. I've corresponded with Paula via email quite a lot, but had never met her in person, so that was cool. As it turned out, I saw a lot of Paula over the weekend.

My first panel was "The Year in Movies." I thought it was weird that I ended up on that instead of "Year in Television," since I work in TV but rarely go to movies anymore. However, it turns out that most of the TV panel was spent talking about shows I don't watch, and I actually got in some good comments on the movie panel, so it turned out okay.

Saturday was full. I had a New Writers panel, where I sat next to K. Hutson Price, whom I had also sat next to on the Movie panel. Turns out she's a former 98G Voice Interceptor Linguist (only Russian instead of Korean). Small world. She was a lot of fun, but we didn't get to talk much, because it was such a busy day.

Later I had a panel about anime. I mentioned a while back that I needed to study up for this one. Well, as it turns out, I didn't do it, but I think it turned out well. It's been a long time since I've had an opportunity to flip that switch and go into onstage mode, but I think I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and the audience seemed interested. I had planned to get something signed by the Guest of Honor, David Drake, but I never did dig the books out of storage, so that opportunity passed. I did get Black/on/Black signed by K.D. Wentworth, though, which was cool.

The con was at a hotel which was way out on the east side of town, just a mile from the only Korean restaurant in Tulsa. I rarely eat there, because it's so far out of the way and I'm hardly ever out that far. So Saturday, I took advantage of the proximity and went there. I had the buffet, which was ok, but I wish I had ordered from the menu. One funny thing: the sneeze shield had little signs to identify which food was which. I grabbed some stuff identified as "Chicken Teriyaki" even though it was stir-fry in some red sauce. As I was eating later, I noticed a tentacle in my "Chicken Teriyaki," so I'm pretty sure it was mislabeled, unless they were using, like, Elder God chickens or something.

After lunch, I went back to the hotel and realized that I'd just had a spicy kimchi-laden lunch just minutes before I was supposed to sit on a panel with the Guest of Honor, so I jumped into the Green Room and drank a bottle of water in about 2 minutes to try to wash away some of the residues. Of course, once I got to the Baen's Universe panel, David Drake sat right next to me. I hope I didn't smell too awful. The panel was pretty good, but I fear I babbled.

My reading was opposite the Yard Dog Press Travelling Road Show, which means no one was there. Lee Killough was the only person in the audience. I bummed around, watched bits of panels featuring my friends, and then went up to the film room to see a short film by Frank Wu. Frank is a hyperactive dude, very enthusiastic, who is a former Illustrators of the Future winner and who is featured in the first DaiKaiju! anthology. He has turned his DaiKaiju! story into an animated film, which is pretty hilarious. I got a free "Guidolon, the Giant Space Chicken" T-Shirt from him.

At 6:30, the Universe folks met in the lobby to go to dinner. We ended up having one person too many to fit on the vehicles provided, so I offered to follow in my car. William Ledbetter, another Universe author, rode along with me. We were going to a restaurant I'd never been to before.

I got lost. Called The Wife for directions, but she didn't answer her phone. Bill called his wife to see if she could pull directions off the internet, but she did not answer either. I ended up calling the Master Control room at the station to ask them to check the address for me. Dinner was good, but expensive, and the portions were huge, which caused me some later distress after my spicy Korean lunch.

We had a Universe party in the hotel after dinner, which was sparsely attended, but fun. I drank a little (thanks for the beer, Matt), but went home a little after one in the morning. I missed the masquerade and play, which means I also missed the announcement that I had won second place in the Bad Metaphor contest. My winning entry (as well as I can remember):

Her eyes clouded over with a troubled expression, like the coating of dust on a car in a Wal-Mart parking lot; he wanted to take his finger and write "Wash Me" on her eyeball.

Even though I hardly drank at all, I had a raging headache all the next day. I had no activities scheduled for myself except a signing. I broke out some old copies of Blue Falcon, just to have something to sign, but didn't sell any. I mostly watched panels by my friends, then attended the closing ceremonies.

Later that evening, I went to the Dead Dog dinner at Johnnie's. David Drake and James Hogan were there, which surprised me, but I was still all with the headache, so I wasn't as social as I might have been otherwise. Then again, everybody was tired, so maybe they didn't care.

Anyway, it was fun, and I even took some pictures, but they didn't turn out very well. I was having flash problems. The pictures where I didn't use the flash are blurry because of the long exposure time. The pictures with flash have little blobs of light all over them. I think my lens is dirty.

So there were some problems, but overall, it was a great time.

A Little Worried

The "Whack a Monkey" T-Shirt has not arrived yet. It's not a huge deal. I'd planned to wear it Saturday, so I still have tomorrow, and if it comes Saturday, I can still wear it Sunday. But it sure would have been better to have it in hand today.

Other than that, things are okay. Only about a quarter of a way through The Tank Lords, and it's not what I expected. I sort of knew what to expect, given it's a Hammer's Slammers book, but what I didn't realize is it's a collection of shorter works. So there was an opening scene that was only tangentially connected to the next big storyline (which I'm currently reading), but I don't get the feeling that it's going in to a definite conclusion. It just seems to happen aimlessly, moment by moment, which is not bad, exactly, but doesn't really keep me glued to the page in suspense, trying to help push them to their goal.

Making no progress on Hero Go Home, but with luck, this weekend will inspire me.

The Ivanhoe Problem

So I finished Black/on/Black and now I'm reading David Drake's The Tank Lords, one of the Hammer's Slammers series. I'm hoping to have it and Stars/Over/Stars, the sequel to Black/on/Black, finished by the start of the con. I probably won't, but the new toy has made reading fun again, now that I can carry several books, plus my own manuscripts, in my pocket. I find myself reading during lunch, during breaks at work, during any sort of lull, really. I was suffering a bit of buyer's remorse right after I bought the Palm, but I'm hoping that the Frazier'sBrain Mobile Command Center will prove its worth at the con.

About Black/on/Black: I had avoided reading this for quite a while, mainly because of the main character (a seven-foot-tall fuzzy alien with fangs and claws who goes by the name of Heyoka Blackeagle). The alien species seemed terribly derivative of both Niven's Kzin and Cherryh's Chanur series, plus having an alien with an American Indian name seemed a little too precious. But when the author read a portion of a short story in progress featuring the same character, I was intrigued enough to hunt down the book and try it out, and I've got to say, I'm glad I did. It was pretty good.

The one big shortcoming for me is a matter of personal taste, a pet peeve I call the 'Ivanhoe Problem.' When I was young, I read a book titled Ivanhoe; I don't think it was the Sir Walter Scott version, but perhaps a novelization of the movie or a modernized version for younger readers. I remember liking parts of the book quite a lot, but I was horribly frustrated by one major feature of the book's plot.

Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the title character, is terribly wounded early in the book, and spends much of the plot being shuttled and hidden and cared for by Rebecca, only to emerge again toward the end to win the day in the big battle alongside Robin of Locksley. So for most of the book, instead of reading about the heroic knight whose adventures I'd signed on to read, I was reading about all of the plots and counter-plots surrounding the heroic knight, along with the efforts of the supporting cast to get the heroic knight into position for the climax. The "hero" I wanted to read about was lying in bed, sweating and shivering with fever and infection.

Once again, perhaps the balance is better in the original than the version I read (if indeed I read a different version - it was 30 years ago or so when I read it). But ever since, it has irritated me to one degree or another to open a book and get interested in a character, only to have that character torn to shreds and spend a long time recuperating. In Black/on/Black, we're introduced to two main characters on page one, and within a couple of chapters, they're both wounded and helpless and spend most of the rest of the book incapacitated in some way, being shuttled around by the supporting cast. I like the writing, and I like the characters, and I understand the impulse by the author to signal to the audience that the characters aren't invulnerable, but damn, I hope the sequel lets them stay on their feet a little more.

A New Toy

So for about two decades now, I've made a habit of taking a notebook with me when I go out for a beer. Over the years, I've written major parts of three screenplays, three aborted novels and two finished ones in bars over a beer and (in more recent years) a cigar. I like the ambience, the rush and babble of people, and the fact that when I get tired of writing, I can pause and observe people, and when I get tired of that, I can go back to writing.

But lately, I 've found myself getting more and more impatient with paper and pen. Sometimes, I want to stop in midstream and work on something different, but I don't want to get the pages mixed up. Sometimes I get an idea I want to save, so I jot it in the margins, only to forget about it once I've transcribed the notes. Sometimes, my fingers just want the feel of a keyboard under them. So I've considered getting different types of laptops over the years, only they're too big and too expensive. On the other hand, a PDA/keyboard combination wasn't practical because of the limitations of the technology.

But now, technology has caught up to what I wanted to do. I bought a Palm T/X with a Wireless Keyboard. The Palm T/X has bluetooth and Wi-Fi, plus built in software to make it compatible with Microsoft Office, so I can edit my Microsoft Word manuscripts on it, plus I can carry and read ebooks as well (I'm currently reading Black/on/Black by K.D. Wentworth, an award-winning writer and a member of my local writing group - snagged it out of the Baen Free Library - this weekend at Conestoga, I'll probably buy a paper copy and have her sign it). The keyboard is collapsible, so that I can carry both it and the Palm in the same small zip-up binder that I've been carrying my mini-legal pad in.

That's right. I can carry my Wi-Fi compatible computer with an almost full-sized keyboard, and still have my old notebook with me, in the same binder. I hope it turns out to be worth the investment.

Only a few days left till Conestoga. The "Whack a Monkey" T-shirt is on its way. I still have to decide what story to read. I need to do some reading up on what genre movies came out in the past year. I need to bone up on my anime. And I need to get some work done on the second draft of Hero Go Home. And then I've got to figure out whether I'm going to Armadillocon in Austin or not. I've got the weekend cleared for vacation, but I still haven't bought a membership or figured out where I would stay if I went. Rrrrrgh.

Redesign Time?

The more I look at that freaking enormous banner I made, the more I think I want something more compact and reader-friendly. And maybe a less bilious color sceme while I'm at it. Keep your eyes open.

Whack a Monkey

Okay, the "Whack a Monkey T-Shirt is now available. It's not exactly the same as the pic I posted yesterday; I noodled a bit on the monkey's arm and did some digital surgery on the stop sign to change the angle. It's something so subtle that maybe no one would ever notice, but it was bugging me, so I fixed it.

I'll probably only sell one to myself, which would be sad, because this one is so much cooler than the first one. I'll be wearing both to Conestoga, though, so maybe they'll be worth something as advertising, if nothing else. Damn, art is fun, but it's eating a lot of time that I probably should be writing. Still, I feel the need to stick to the art kick while I can to get some stuff out of my system (plus, you never know, I may get all cocky and pull a naamah_darling by entering Illustrators of the Future as well as WOTF).

Another Shirt

I mentioned a while back that I had another idea for a shirt. It may not make it all the way to shirt-hood, but I felt compelled to try the illustration anyway, and I think it turned out okay. Here's a small example. Click on the picture to see it a little larger.



The JPEG is a little lossy and blurry, but it should give you the flavor. It was quite a long process to go through all the steps, but I'm happy with the result. If anyone is interested, I'll put together a little something to show the steps the illustration went through. There are some interesting things in there you might not expect. But I won't go to the trouble unless someone asks.

Oh yeah, if this did become a shirt, the back would read something like...

"...and he's got this stop sign that he's yanked out of the ground somewhere, and he's popping these monkeys on the head with it. Like, you ever see North by Northwest? When the biplane's chasing Cary Grant? Kinda' like that, only with, you know, green monkeys."

Missed Again

Well, I finally got notified of my WOTF entry's fate. Quarter-finalist again. It's odd. I've been waiting so long that I really was hoping for more significant news, so I'm really disappointed right now, even though I knew when I submitted the story that it was not a contest winner. It's not a bad story. It's fast-moving and quirky and fun, but as I mentioned when I submitted it, it's lightweight. All flash, no real substance.

Which makes me wonder which market to send it to. It's one of those stories that just rides the edge of the genre. The fantasy element is almost all in the stylization. I've heard the term "magical realism" bandied about, but I've never read one of the books in question, but I wonder if this is what they mean. It's almost mainstream in the sense that it never totally crosses the line into fantasy in terms of magic or elves or such, but the characters and events are so cartoonish that they feel like fantasy. All I know for sure is that it's not right for the big SF mags, it's not right for the big literary mags, and Universe, for which it is very nearly perfect, isnt buying right now. I must chew on this for a while. Maybe I'll just start throwing the orphans up on Amazon Shorts.

In the meantime, does anybody know of a good market for a funny, slipstreamy story about hot rods?

Latveria For Real

The Shirt arrived yesterday, and it looks pretty good. There's a little color bleed, but it's green from the monkey, so that's okay. Makes him look like he's glowing or something, which is all good. Got my submission to Playboy put together last night for transport to the Post Office this morning. Got up this morning and realized I'd forgotten to include the SASE. Doh! Time for some envelope surgery.

We were sitting around the station yesterday talking about North Korea, which was the subject of news stories on at the time. And the subject comes up about where they get their money from, and it is mentioned that much of their money comes from weapons sales and organized crime (e.g. gambling parlors in Japan, counterfeiting of U.S. currency, etc). At which point a light bulb goes on over my head, and I say, "They're Latveria!"

Which, as you know, is the fictional country run by Dr. Doom in Marvel Comics (I say this having not read a Marvel comic in years, the company having pissed away my loyalty as a consumer long years ago). A worldwide pariah, a country run by a maniacal madman (but Dr. Doom's no madman, you say - go perform your own experiments that combine science and black magic, that go so horribly awry that thay scar your face so terribly you have to wear a mask just to be seen on the streets, and then we'll talk about sane or mad), isolated and feared by the world community yet rolling in the dough to buy massive amounts of weaponry, financed through illicit means. North Korea isn't identical in every detail, but it is the closest thing to a real-world analogue.

Superman Returns

I saw Superman Returns on the Fourth (was it really just yesterday?). My reactions are mixed. By now, you probably know that the film does not so much reimagine Superman as revive the 70's movie version, acting almost as a replacement Superman 3. From the opening titles to the production design to Brandon Routh's performance to Lex Luthor's band of thugs, the film refers back to the first two 70's films constantly, but updates things on a grander scale and with awesome updated effect (the bit where Superman is shot in the eye absolutely rocks).

But when it was over, I wasn't satisfied, like at all. My complaints:

Taking off from the 70's films gives you a built-in history, but at times, it almost feels like a really big-budget fan film. You know, where you've got actors playing all the right parts and going through all the right motions, but the faces and voices are just wrong. There's a certain spark missing. Case in point: the final shot of the film mimics the final shot of the Christopher Reeve films, but Routh doesn't nail the mugging-the-camera smile with the same panache that Reeve did.

Lex Luthor again? Seriously. I know that Superman's villain bench is not as deep as, say, Batman's or Spiderman's, but the Superman animated series showed that you could do interesting variations on the comic's villains. But out of five Superman films, Lex has been a baddie in four. I thought Spacey was great in the role; he was brilliant and sociopathic, with a perfect balance of envy and hatred. But dang it, let's give somebody else a shot, mmm-kay?

The climax disappointed me. Superman only seems to win because Singer decided to retcon kryptonite. In earlier versions, kryptonite weakens Superman whenever he is in close proximity to it. In Singer's version, it only seems to affect him if he's touching it. It makes for a disappointing climax, because instead of rooting for Superman, I'm trying to figure out why he isn't dead.

I had others, but these are the biggies. I liked it, and I'll probably buy it, but this one didn't thrill me the way Batman Begins or the original Reeve Superman did.

Scheduling Blues

I volunteered for as many events as they could put me on in Conestoga, because it's my first con as a guest, and I was excited. But now I find that my Baen's Universe panel, for instance, is opposite my friend Richard Cox's reading. My reading is opposite both Richard's signing and a panel about gaming (with another friend from my writing group) that I'd like to attend. My signing is up against both a Writing Action Sequences panel I'd like to attend (with Richard), and a Graphic Novel panel likewise (with mtreiten). Now granted, in my experience, panels are rarely as good as you hope they'll be, so I probably won't be missing much. And there will still probably be plenty of fun to be had. Baen's Universe is throwing a party Saturday night, and I'll be sitting on a panel with David Freaking Drake at one point, so good for me. But still, I'd like to be able to support my friends as well.

In other news, I submitted a story to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine a while back. It got rejected pretty quickly, and it's been sitting quietly waiting for me to figure out the next place to send it to. I think I'll send it to Playboy. I may go through and trim it a bit more before I do, but if you're submitting, might as well start at the top.

Chilling and Regrouping

I've actually gotten a lot done this weekend, but it's hard to point to any one thing. I've been repainting my flash drive casing (the silver coating had almost completely rubbed off the plastic, so I've been doing a Superman-type blue and red), but screwed it up this afternoon and have to redo one side. I washed my car today (which might not sound like a big deal, but trust me, it is). I've done laundry, I've done some computer maintenance stuff, and I got my T-shirt store set up.

Weird thing about that: I ordered the shirt Saturday, then slapped my head when I realized, it's a four-day weekend, so the order probably won't even get sent out until Friday. So imagine my surprise when I get an email on Sunday saying my order is on its way and giving me a UPS tracking number!

I haven't written a short story since March, and haven't really written anything since finishing the first draft of Hero Go Home in May. I've been reluctant to work on short stories until I finished the novel, and once I did, I was just too tired in my brain to work on one. I've got a few old ideas still floating around, plus a couple of new ones, but I don't know what I'm going to do first. I need to write some new short stories so I can enter Writers of the Future again, assuming my current entry is not a winner (I hear through the grapevine that the finalists have already been notified, so I'm not hopeful).

I've got four stories out right now, and all of them have been waiting on responses for a long time. "Double-Secret Weapon" has been at Baen's Universe since December (and won't get a decision until October at the earliest), "Frame by Frame" has been at "Paging Mr. Hitchcock" since late January, "Shell" at IGMS since February (where it has apparently been passed up from slush to the editor - he tells me it's in "the middle" of his stack), and my current WOTF entry since late March. The ironic thing here is that the latest submitted will probably get the first response.

It's weird. After a while, I get tired of waiting and hoping for acceptance and just start saying, "Reject me already." After a certain point, I'd rather have rejection and closure rather than a continuing vague promise of possible acceptance out there somewhere.

On the good side, I got some good feedback about Hero Go Home (not so much in the "this is great" sense as in the "this is what you need to fix" sense) that actually helped me sort out a lot of my own thoughts about what I want to accomplish with the rewrite, so I may be starting that really soon. I want to have a lot of progress made by Conestoga.

Speaking of which, more tomorrow...

The Shirt Is A Reality

Well, I finally finished the design for the shirt. I decided to include the quotation in the illustration and leave the back blank. I may change that if I get inspired, but it was enough work just getting the front prepped. If you want one (and you know you do), go to my store and check 'em out. I only selected a few styles to offer, but if they have a shirt style you want that isn't in my catalog, I can add it, no problem. Just let me know. Here's a look at the final illustration:



I've already ordered mine to wear at Conestoga. See you there.

A Further New Look

Decided to make it a little more colorful. Learned about the wonderful uses of color wheels, to keep the colors from clashing. What a great tool; wish I'd paid more attention in freshman art class.

Anyway, I'm still not totally thrilled with it, but it's getting closer to what I want. I may leave it alone for a while (which in practice usually means a year), because I have other things to do. I got the green light from Baen's Universe for the T-shirts. One step closer to making them a reality. Now I've got to see if I can get one in time for Conestoga.

The New Look

If you've been here before, you obviously notice a change. I'm not 100% satisfied with it, but at least it's not all girly like the previous look. I'm going to keep toying with it while I try to find something I like, simple and direct, yet fun. I'll probably change the plain colored background to some kind of image background, once I find something I like. I may change the grey boxes to different colors. And in a couple of months, I'll probably get tired of the banner at the top and change it to something better looking (as I get more experienced at image processing). I may switch to a 3-column layout. At this point, I'm not sure of anything except that I was tired of what I had before.

Enjoy your long weekend, if you get one, and if not, work hard.

Dept of Creepy Coincidences

Thinking about dressing things up around here, maybe putting together a custom template. In the meantime...

Most of you will probably have heard that Jim Baen died last night. David Drake wrote an online obit that is much more eloquent than anything I could say about it. But in searching for more information about what this will mean to Baen Publishing, I happened onto the front page of Jim Baen's Universe. And what did I see?

A notice about Baen's death in the center column, while on the right, there is his editorial for the first issue, titled "Why Die?"

The Shirt, Part Deux

So I had this idea for something I wanted to blog here, but I forgot what it was. In the meantime, instead of Photoshop, I downloaded a free program called The GIMP, which is a Linux project and does a lot of what Photoshop does. I used it to put some finishing touches on my T-shirt design, which I reproduce here:


As you can see, it's much the same, only some edges are cleaner, Digger and the girl now have shadows, and there is text in the upper right where there used to be a big empty space. I still have a lot to learn about the GIMP and about artwork in general, but I'm pretty jazzed at how well this turned out, and now, of course, I have an idea for an even better shirt. I've written the assistant editor at Baen's Universe to see if there is a problem using the Baen's URL and logo on the shirt. If not, those are easily fixed.

The Shirt

So I got super-inspired over the weekend and, after looking around on-line to find out what it would cost to commission a real comics artist to do a piece for me, decided to buckle down and do it myself. This was really a pain-in-the-ass to do, because I don't have Photoshop, only PhotoDeluxe, which came free with my printer several years ago. It is to Photoshop what MS Works is to MS Word: a sad, pale copy of the real program, dumbed-down for non-artists like myself. Then again, it's an incredibly feature-rich masterpiece compared to the image-processing software that came with my new computer and printer. If I decide to do more of this kind of stuff, however, Photoshop would definitely be worth the investment.

That said, I am really quite pleased with the way it turned out, although I may need to tweak a couple of things. The concept of the T-shirt is that on one side, it says, "...and there, sitting on the roof, holding my burger, is this big, green monkey."
with maybe an "Astromonkeys!" logo or something. And on the other side is this:


So what do you think? I could get these done easily by Cafepress, only their prices are a little high (understandable considering that they're essentially a clothing POD). I might be able to get them made more cheaply locally, if I buy in bulk, but then I have to find a place to store them, and really, how many people are going to want one of these? I think I need to add something on the right to balance the composition, maybe another background figure or something. I'm also not sure if I want the photo background or if I want to go with something more abstract, like an irregular splash of background color. But at least the hardest part is done. If I do go with the photo background, I should probably add in some shadows under the figures, I guess.

A Visual History of Digger

I lost the best picture I ever drew of Digger and don't know if I could ever duplicate it. However, while I'm thinking about possible T-shirt designs, I thought it might be interesting to look back at how Digger has evolved visually. This may only be interesting to me, but what the hell, it's late and I want to be silly.

When I first came up with Digger as a Champions game character, I wanted him to be dressed in more-or-less earth tones, given his affinity for dirt. But all brown and green was just crying out for brighter color, so I ended up with this:


The tan pants and brown boots are earthy, while the blue shirt suggests sky, maybe. I just thought the bicolor effect on the shirt looked cool, while I added the fringe to the tops of the moccasin boots both to break up the silhouette and for joke value, since the fringe would rarely survive a battle intact.

I also, though I didn't draw it, imagined him wearing a poncho, a'la Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti Western, whenever he went out in public, to conceal the Drillers.

Almost a year later, I decided Digger was getting a bit tired of his plain ordinary look, and gave him a radical makeover:



You'll notice I'd been watching a lot of anime at that point. I gave him naval dress blue pants with a racing stripe and an original X-Men tunic, partially concealed by a completely non-functional chest armor console. Basically, Digger had a dashboard. I also switched out the boots for a more durable pair with a big buccaneer flap, cut his hair, and grew out his beard. But you'll notice I left the poncho in place. Oh yeah, and I added some decorative fins to the Drillers, just for the hell of it. It's a weird mish-mash of a costume, mainly memorable for not being anything like the previous one.

Several months later, a long-running storyline entered a crisis (right before summer vacation), so I did a special illustration to show Digger at the height of battle.



This was the only time I'd ever seen anybody use a dramatic close-up on a character sheet, but I figured 'what the hell?' (and yes, you'll notice I was still watching a lot of anime). The dashboard is gone, as is the beard. The hair is back to shaggy and wild, the shirt is ripped, and there is a certain air of desperation about him. He's cornered and fighting a losing battle, obviously, but he hasn't given up.

That campaign ended soon after, but I brought Digger back to fight again when I started a new campaign in Oklahoma City. At that time, I debated another new costume concept, but ended up going back to almost classic Digger, combining elements of both costumes to create a new fusion. Oh yeah, the fringe is back, baby!



The description in Hero Go Home, however, is a throwback to the blue-shirt days, with the only new element being the "D" logos on each shoulder, an innovation that was added by PlayCo. I've also lately been thinking more of the Drillers as being elevated away from the arm, like this incomplete sketch from "Astromonkeys!"



I don't really know what's best anymore, except that I know I'm not a huge fan of the "Quake"-style look they gave him in Baen's Universe. So I'm going to take a shot at an illustration over the weekend, see how it works out.

Uijongbu Street Scene

I mentioned a couple of days ago that rereading William Gibson's books made me want to write something possibly taking place in Korea. Mainly, it was Idoru which put this idea in my head, since Idoru mostly takes place in Japan. There's a scene in Idoru where the main character, Laney, goes to a Kafka theme bar, and it reminded me of this:

This was a street in Uijongbu, where I was stationed. Some guys in my unit formed a little band called "Morning Wood." Since they weren't allowed to play on post with a name like that, they got a gig at a little club in town called the R&B Club. That row of windows on the second floor? That's the club. But take a closer look...

Here's a close-up of the R&B sign. Yes, that's a triceratops head sticking out of the wall. There were more in the stairwell and in the club itself. No, I don't know what ceratopsians and R&B have in common, other than the fact that some might argue they're both dinosaurs. Ha. Oh, yeah, and farther back in the picture, look at this...


Yup, that's right, good old American KFC, only this one has a life-size fiberglass statue of the Colonel out front. I've stopped eating at KFC since the last menu reshuffle, which jacked up all the prices while simultaneously dumping some of my favorite menu items, plus the staff at the closest one are just seriously incompetent. But you know what? I'll bet I'd be more likely to give 'em another chance if they had a life-size fiberglass statue of the Colonel out front.

Of course the problem is that if they did that here, it might, might, last a week before it got stolen or vandalized. Damn criminals, vandals, and gang members. They're the reason we can't have cool stuff.

I wanna go back to Korea sometimes.

About the Car

To answer the question as to the car I bought:

It's a Chevrolet Aveo, aka DaeWoo Kalos, aka Holden Barina, aka Suzuki Swift+, aka Pontiac Wave. Red 5-door hatchback. About.com describes the car's heritage this way:

It began life as a Daewoo product but when GM bought the company the Swift+/Aveo was updated mechanically by Suzuki, given a style refresher by Italy's Giugiaro/ItalDesign, had its development overseen by General Motors engineers in Detroit. A global product if there ever was one!

It's a weird little car. Looks like a compact from a distance, but it's built tall, so when I'm driving it, it feels like I'm driving my mom's van. Base model, not even power windows on it, but it's new, it doesn't leak in the rain, and it gets 30-ish miles to the gallon. I still have the Batmobile, only now I can get it fixed up nicely without worrying how I'm going to get to work to afford the repairs. All in all, I'm pretty happy with. Pics later, maybe, on a day when it's not raining.

I'm playing with TiddlyWiki, having fun, seeing all sorts of possibilities for this simple little tool. I've been wanting a place to collect and analyze all the interconnected threads of Lost. This could do that, maybe. I've been wanting to write an interactive HTML manual for my guys at work; drill down quickly to find exactly the bit you need to know at the moment you need it. This is an incredibly easy way to do that. Writing the Wiki for DiggerWorld is fun, although it strikes me that if I intend to put one of these on-line, I'll actually need to do two: one for my own use, and a non-spoilerish one for other folks to peruse.

But wow, it's easy to learn and fast to use, and the resulting document is flexible and compact, yet complex. I get the feeling that there are huge possibilities here.

Now I just need to get some illustrations done. I have a vision for a T-shirt illustration, but haven't gotten beyond the daydream stage yet. I can draw okay, but I'm out of practice and haven't had the time to devote to it, lately.

Quiet Lately

I've been busy doing random stuff - bought a car, been working nights for a guy on vacation, been rereading Gibson's second novel trilogy (Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties).

The Gibson stuff is odd. I remembered it as having more plot than it does. There's a lot of character and a lot of texture and backstory, worldbuilding if you will, but the actual plot is pretty light. And a really striking thing is that he has bad guys in the first and third books that are almost identical (supremely skilled killing machines who wear long coats and have deep smile creases down each cheek). Looking at Gibson's author photo on the back of the third book, I wonder if he didn't model both of them off of himself.

Of course, as usually happens with any author I like, reading his books makes me want to write something like it. I've got vague glimmerings of an idea taking place in Korea, but civ, not military this time. And I'm thinking of using TiddlyWiki to develop it and keep track of all the random pieces. I might also use it to keep track of all my World of Digger stuff.

I still haven't started rewriting the novel. As soon as I finish this third Gibson book, I'll reread it and make notes, then either construct the Wiki to try to find deeper connections between pieces or start rewriting scenes. Things I know I need to do include:

• strengthening point of view
• stronger, clearer character development
• research details and insert into text - for instance, one character is a Czech and curses at one point in his native language - right now, the MS just says "Czeching damn!" every time, which is evocative, but not what I actually want him to say
• Get consistent with stuff I changed my mind about during the draft, like whether Digger's powers work perfectly or not
  

Chicken or Egg?

So the Mini idea isn't getting any love from anybody I've talked to about it. I think this car is awesome, but other people's reactions, including The Wife, range from amused head-shakes to outright hostility. I'm bummed.

And at the same time, another idea has been rolling around in my head, and I'm wondering if it's time to do something about it. I've currently got the two websites: the Chamber of Secrets over on Geocities, that I haven't updated in over two years, and this blog. I'm wondering if maybe it's time to take the plunge and get my own domain. Put up some writing links, maybe a World of Digger wiki or something, convert the blog to Wordpress or Movable Type and get disciplined about updating it more often and more interestingly, to make it a more attractive destination.

On the one hand, it would work better as a promotional tool, but on the other hand, it would cost a chunk of money, and I don't have the traffic to justify it right now. Hence my Chicken and Egg dilemma.

If I build it, will they come, or do I wait until they're standing in line to take the plunge?

Sublime, Meet Ridiculous

The announcement has gone out all over the place that there's a buying freeze on at Baen's Universe. They've bought an entire year's worth of stories, and still haven't gotten in all the ones they've commissioned. As a result, they've imposed a buying freeze until at least October 1. Which affects me like this:

That leaves the problem of what to do with the stories that were
submitted prior to June 12. What we've decided to do is leave those
stories in the pool for consideration for the second year of the
magazine -- but notify the authors that the delay is likely to be very
long before they receive either an acceptance or a rejection.


This strikes me as rather ironic. "Astromonkeys" took seven hours from submissions to acceptance. A couple of weeks later, the assistant editor said she'd like to see a sequel. I took that as a hint, and seeing as how I'd just written one, I sent it in about a month later. It made its way up to Eric Flint in early December. Now it looks as if it will be close to a year before I get a final decision one way or the other. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Of course, they say I'm welcome to pull the story at any time. But who else would publish it? Baen's seems like the perfect fit for Digger and his exploits. So I guess I'll let the story sit, but really, it's a bit of a pain. I could really use some writing income to help with this whole "buying a car" tightrope I'm trying to walk.

I've Got a Fever

So I've had this Miata for two years, and yeah, it looks cool, if you can get past the body damage and the sun fade and the flaking clearcoat. But I've been seeing these commercials for Toyota's new Yaris, the 40 MPG Wundercar (mileage like a hybrid, but way cheaper to buy and maintain). So yesterday, I thought I'd go look at one. And on the way out there, I pass another lot, a BMW place with Z3's and Minis. So I stop and see this.

Pretty cool. I take down some information, and I head out to the Toyota place, and they're sold out of Yarises. So I blow that off and go home. But I just can't get that Mini out of my head, so I run some numbers, and I can just barely afford it, or maybe barely not afford it. So I go back at 8:00 p.m. and test drive it.

Oh, it's sweet.

And if you know anything about the cars I've bought in the past (the '68 Mustang, the Fiero, the Scoupe, the Miata), you know that I go for small, quirky, instantly recognizable cars. This is almost a perfect fit for me. But I'm really not sure I can afford it.

So I go online searching for an alternative, and find another dealer in Broken Arrow who's got an almost identical Mini for $2,000 less. I won't know what's wrong with that one till I run the Carfax, if I get that serious.

It's still a lot more than I want to pay every month, but if I stick with the Miata for another year, I'm looking at several hundred dollars in repairs, probably a new set of tires, plus another winter driving a noisy, leaky, finicky prima donna. I like riding with the top down, but I don't do it very often, because I've almost always got some sort of loose paper shuffling around in there. And The Wife would certainly be thrilled that I'm driving something with more than two seats (which is sort of a combined pro/con, there).

And all of this may be a moot point, because I may end up not qualifying for the loan at all, right? By Monday, maybe reality will sink in and I'll just forget the whole thing until I'm in a little better shape financially.

But seriously, just look at this thing. It just looks like it came right out of a sci-fi comic book, doesn't it? It was made for me. Or at least, it'll do until I can get my own Mini Cooper Robot. (The original site is now down, but trust me, it was hella cool, even if it was a hoax)

Conestoga Schedule

I got my schedule for Conestoga. They loaded me up on Saturday: three panels and a reading. And they've got me on a panel called Year in Movies, which, what kind of idiot was I to volunteer for that? I never go to movies anymore. Now I need to go see some movies. So anyway, if anyone's interested, here's the schedule:

Friday 4 p.m.: Year in Movies

Saturday 9 a.m.: New Writer's Panel
Saturday 11 a.m.: Anime: Best & Worst (guess I need to watch some anime, too)
Saturday 2 p.m.: Baen's Universe
Saturday 4 p.m.: Action Adventure Sampler (reading)

Sunday 11 a.m. : Signing

I have no idea why they have me set up with a signing. I have nothing to sign, other than Blue Falcon. I guess I'll bring the few copies I have left and see if anyone wants one. And I need to figure out what to read. It's an action-adventure panel, so I guess "Frame By Frame" is out of the question. IIRC, it's a 15-minutelimit, so I'm not sure whether to read something really short, like "Out of His League," or read a fragment of something longer, like "Astromonkeys" or my current WoTF entry.

Of course, it's still almost two months away, so I have plenty of time to figure it out. And watch movies. And watch anime...

Thumb Twiddling

Trying to enforce some distance between myself and the manuscript. I've been reading lots of blogs by editors and agents (too lazy to post the links here unless someone asks), rereading notes on screenplay structure (which I use in novel writing as well), analyzing my book's structure on a purely mathematical level, and not much else. I've been thinking about reading something new, but I can't decide what. I'm considering "His Majesty's Dragon" by Naomi Novik, or maybe "Kung Fu High School," or "Fight Club," or maybe go totally retro with "Childhood's End," which I've still never read.

In the meantime, I'm just sort of twiddling my thumbs, Googling to see if anyone has posted reactions to Baen's Universe yet (and especially my story, of course), feeling increasing urgency to get the book out the door and in an editor's hands while feeling my enthusiasm for actually working on the book diminish, and basically just waiting, like the kid in the trike in "The Incredibles," for "something amazing, I guess..."

Any questions? Any suggestions?

A Half-Assed Plan

Torn as I am between letting it sit and getting it done, I've come up with a compromise plan. Two weeks. I'm going to let the manuscript cool for two weeks, then launch on a clean-up campaign that I hope to finish by the end of August, and then off to Baen first. I've been told to send to Ace, but I'm going to Baen for two reasons, somewhat related: 1) I sort of owe them because they got the ball rolling on the Digger thing, and 2) they're favorably disposed toward the character already.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about some possible merchandising ideas. Maybe an "Astromonkeys!" T-shirt or something, if I can come up with a good design.