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.

Now What?

S0 I couldn't stand it any longer and sat down to rewrite the ending. Not a big revision, just a couple hundred extra words to tie up the loose ends with two major characters, one of them the big villain.

Now I don't know what to do with myself. I haven't played City of Heroes in so long, I've almost forgotten how. I don't want to do any more rewriting until I've let the book sit a while. I don't have any story ideas that are just begging to be written. I guess I could try to read a few books; haven't read a novel in who knows how long? I can't think of hte last one I've read, other than my friend's manuscripts. Maybe "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." That was in July.

Wow. What should I read, I wonder?

Mental Seesaw

I should quit obsessing over what's done for now, but I realize that the book has quite a few glaring weaknesses that need fixing. In addition to what I've mentioned before, there is a bit after the end of the second act that I rushed through because I was afraid of losing the audience while I wallowed in the characters' grief. Now I think I should wallow at least a bit more, for the reader's sake. Things that seem to stretch out intolerably long while I'm writing them sometimes flash past very quickly when I'm reading.

But the biggest problem is the ending. The ending for Digger is fine, I think, and one of the villains gets what's coming to him, but the other really doesn't, because I couldn't figure out just what might be needed in his case. I think I've got it figured out now (a little too late, considering some first readers already have the manuscript, but oh well).

The issue now is how long to let it sit before I try to revise, or do I go ahead and jump into the scenes that I know how to fix right away.

I don't know. I'm very tired.

Structural Thoughts

I wrote an essay a while back that I printed on my old site about my problem revising what I've written. My basic thesis was that once I finish laying out a story, or writing the first draft, the thing sets in my mind like concrete and I have major problems trying to change anything after that. I might make minor revisions, change a detail here and there, add a bridging scene or remove one, but as far as reimagining large parts of the story, it just doesn't happen.

So after I finished the first draft of Hero Go Home on Saturday and read it yesterday, today I find myself making notes about things I want to fix, and damned if I'm not considering some major changes, especially in Act I.

Because Act I is the weakest, really. I wrote it all, with the exception of a few scenes added later, in the first 8 days of November, so I really rushed through it and avoided scenes and ideas that I thought would be too complicated or add too much length. Now the book is really lopsided; Act I is less than a quarter of the book's full length, while Act III is almost half.

And most of what's in Act I is dialogue scenes--pages and pages of dialogue. I've worried before about the talky beginning, and let me tell you: it actually works pretty well. The dialogue scenes aren't boring, and they're really important to let us get to know the main characters. But the middle of Act I could use some fleshing out (and serendipitously, I need to flesh it out to bring it more in line with Baen's word-length preferences for novels), and the emotional arcs could be sharper.

I'd really like to sit down and discuss this with some smart writers to help me break the story a bit and make sure I've got a good plan for fixing the structure of Act I. Act II needs to be sharpened a bit, too, especially in the first half, but I haven't gotten to the point where I'm ready to take it on. But over the next few days, I'll get some ideas together.

So I Lied

At 5 a.m., I said it might be week before I looked at it. So of course, by 9 or so, I was reading the ending I wrote last night, and by noon, I was starting the damn thing from the beginning. Read it all the way through.

My initial thoughts: wow, it's messy. Lots of typos, even in sections I've gone over several times. LOTS of continuity errors, some because I changed my mind and had a better idea later (as is the case with a particular villain bit), some because I just forgot I'd already mentioned something earlier (e.g., the name of a minor character that changes without warning). A few talky digressions, but most of them aren't as bad as I feared. Several characters just drop off the map without warning, some of them major, and I need to make room for some kind of closure for them.

On the good side, I think it has a lot of promise. Some good dialogue, nice rhythms, interesting and unusual characters, some neat twists that aren't telegraphed too much, I don't think. I was kind of worried going in whether I would be able to create big enough action setpieces to make the story seem spectacular, but I think I outdid myself on that score. Not only that, but toward the end there, I even started to get in some emotional resonance, and even some genuflection toward a theme, which just freaking amazes me.

I'm really surprised by how much it depends on backstory, because that's usually one of my biggest weaknesses: characters who seem to exist almost exclusively in the now, never thinking about their pasts because they just don't have them. But like Tolkien, I've had some of these characters spinning in my head for as long as twenty-five years, so they have built up a history in my heart. Add that to the fact that the novel draws from all three Digger short stories and an aborted novel about one of the main villains (who was originally intended to be a hero, but then , all villains think they're the heroes of their own stories, don't they?), and you have quite a deep foundation to build on.

So overall, I think I wrote something that's going to take a LOT of work to clean up, but I think I managed to write something that will be worth the work it takes to clean up, if that makes any sense. So I'm generally pretty happy right now.

Saturday night is not partiable, so I'm looking at Tuesday, because I'm off the next day. Then again, I'm thinking about going to grab a beer right now, just because I'm basking in the afterglow.

What now?

A Few More Words

A little more detail: I promised my self it would be done yesterday, and I worked for something like six hours making it so. Remember when I said it wouldn't be 85,000?

It's 85,000.

Which means I just milked the bejeezus out of the climax. And I guess in a first draft, it's good not to be afraid to do that. It's crazy and over-the-top, but fun, I hope. I'm afraid to even look at it for a while. Seriously. Some people I trust want to look at it, but as for me, it may be a week or more before I take the plunge. I had too much fun writing it toward the end there, so it must be bad.

EDIT: Okay, I took a peek, and... It's really messy, but seems to hang together. The big problem is that I let so many characters just kind of drop out here and there and never come back. Need to tie up more of the loose ends.

One Word

DONE

Barring Disaster, I Finish Tomorrow

I set myself two goals when I gave myself the big challenge last month: to write at least 80,000 words, and to finish the story. Tomorrow, I should achieve both of those goals. I'm within 1,000 words of my numerical target, although I may be as many as 5,000 away from actually finishing the story (my guess is closer to 3,000). Either way, I'm close enough and motivated enough that by this time tomorrow, I should have typed "The End" to a novel draft for only the second time in my life (I don't count the other manuscript that I tacked a quickie ending on, because I wrote it longhand and never finished transcribing it into the computer).

79,000 / 80,000 (92.5%)

You'll know if I do it.

Buckling Down

It's funny. The huge momentum I thought I'd have is not manifesting in long writing stretches where I do 4-5-6000 words at a time. Partly that's a function of the time restrictions I'm working under, catching what writing I can when I can (for instance, I may have written as much as 2,000 words today in various pieces, but the official count has not moved because it's mostly in longhand and I haven't integrated it into the official MS yet).

And it's also a function of the complexity and scale of the climax. I think I mentioned that the climax is more streamlined than the Act II close in a lot of ways, but I still have to make sure all the pieces are advancing in the right order, and that each cutscene has more content to it than just a straight listing of punches and kicks. I've got to hit crisis points for all of my simultaneous subplots, then resolve them all in the right order, and it's tricky.

So I'm not churning out tons of words at blazing speed. However, I am doing easily a thousand words a day, often more, and when I stop writing, I'm sort of previzzing future scenes in my head. I have almost everything worked out completely between here and the end of the book. Now all that remains is to find the exact words and get 'em into type.

It may be done tomorrow. If not, it will almost certainly be done Saturday. After that, all that remains is to find some first readers who don't mind reading a messy draft with lots of holes, and schedule the party I promised (probably Saturday, June 3, although no one really seems too enthused over the prospect, so I'm not sure the shape the celebtration might take if I'm alone).

What The Hell Is Up With This?

Well, the SAT bug (Sluggish, Achy and Tired) has burned through my family, and luckily, it's only a one-day thing. I'm feeling fine today. Had the day off, went to my daughter's kindergarten graduation, which...

You know, it was a neat deal and all, but are they going to give them diplomas for every grade? I hope not.

Anyway, after that, I went to the office and wrote for a while. Here's the counter (thought I'd try blue this time):

76,000 / 80,000 (95.0%)

But here's the thing that bugs me--here I am, literally a stone's throw from the ending, right smack in the middle of the big action climax, a climax, might I add, that is not only probably the coolest thing I've ever written, but is much, much cooler than I even imagined it would be when I first conceived this project going on fifteen years ago.

So why, why am I choosing now of all times to start worrying that the book has no overall arc? I mean, it does, in a sense;there is a sequence of causation from the beginning of the book to the end. And being adventure fiction (and something leaning toward serial adventure fiction at that), you don't expect the same kind of dramatic unity and character growth that you'd see in a literary novel.

But I worry that when people read it, they'll just see what the Turkey City Lexicon calls an 'And Plot.' This happens, then that happens, then another thing happens, and it all adds up to a whole lot of hullaballoo over nothin'. I mean, I'm already taking a risk with a Deus ex Machina.

I just hate it that I'm letting my buzz over finishing what could be a very entertaining story be diluted by my fear that I'm writing the novel equivalent of "Attack of the Clones"--a ton of cool effects and scenes in the service of a 'meh' story.

Look What I Got

Didn't feel well today. Sluggish, achy and tired. Couldn't tell if it was a delayed onset soreness from the rally hard workout Saturday, or a symptom of carbohydrate depletion, or fatigue from only averaging four hour of sleep the last couple of nights, or maybe I was catching whatever my wife had last night (which IIRC was basically, "Sluggish, achy and tired").

So I cut out of work a couple of hours early, dropped by the office and tried to nap for an hour. Followed that with an hour of writing, then came home and did this, finally.

74,000 / 80,000 (92.5%)

Great momentum right now. I have no idea what I'll do with myself once this is over, though. Maybe try to write a short story for this quarter's WoTF. Time's running out to submit, and I really don't have anything decent in the files.

7K to Go

Short post, just to say that I got a little work done tonight. The official count: 73,000 words. What's left: 7,000 words in nine days. For all I know, I 'll finish by Saturday. Hell, for all I know, I'll finish by this time tomorrow, if I go really crazy.

And of course, the day after I opine that I may be essentially done with Digger after this book, I come up with a scene that practically begs for a sequel...

Stay tuned.

We're Cookin' With Gas Now, Baby

After diddling and dawdling all week, I finally sat down tonight and pounded out about 3,000 words, then I came home and didn't feel like quitting, so I wrote maybe 800-1,000 more. The official count now stands at 70,000. I have to do 10,000 in 10 days. Yes, I've wasted enough time to get back up to a K a day, although when I add in the extra bit I did tonight, the numbers will change in my favor.

The important thing is that we're into the big finale. All the major players have converged in one spot; the dominoes are falling, and all that is left is to ring that cowbell till it can't ring no more.

I got a fever! And the only cure... is more cowbell!

In other news, Baen's Universe finally sent me the copyedits to "Astromonkeys!" It's only ten days till official publication (and like a full month and a half after Matt got his, and he's not even in the first issue). I think they could have held onto it for another couple of days.

Know what, though? They got 'em to me, I got 'em back to them, and everybody's happy. Come May 31st, I'll be writing "The End" on my manuscript, and come June 1st, the original story goes live, and maybe my life changes. Because I really hope lots of people read this story and like it and ask the good folks at Baen for more. It won't win a Hugo or a Nebula, and it wasn't intended to. It was intended to entertain, and so far, the reaction is good, but I want it to be really good.

Because I want to sell more. Baen already has one sequel they're considering. Agog's still talking about publishing "Out of His League," but if they let it drop, I could shop it to Baen, as well.

I don't know how much Digger I'll have left in me after the novel's done, but I've got at least two more story ideas I'm toying with, and there are lots of interesting spaces in Digger's life that the novel has uncovered. If there's money in it, I'm sure I'll get around to exploring more of them someday.

It's almost midnight, and I have to get up before 5 a.m. for work, and I'm so giddy right now, I don't know if I'll be able to sleep at all tonight. Life's so great, it sucks!

Stuff That Makes Me Laugh

I know, I'm supposed to be shocked, simply shocked, at what happened to these poor art students, but I just find it funny. Here's the short version: students at an art college mounted an exhibition in a war memorial. Some of the artwork was deemed offensive, and the head of the Parks Department closed the exhibit on Thursday. On Monday, the artwork was moved out of the memorial, damaging much of it.

What happened between Thursday and Monday, you might ask? Basically, the college decided to move the exhibit, and the students threw a fit. They demanded that the exhibit be reopened where it was (or in a better location, though I'm pretty sure any alternative other than, say, Grand Central Station would have been pooh-poohed), threatening lawsuits and crying that their First Amendment rights were being breached. Instead of admitting that yeah, some of the art was in bad taste and not perhaps appropriate for display in a public park war memorial, instead of looking for a compromise that would allow them to move their precious penis sculptures and piles of pins-and-foam in a way that would keep them in one piece, they refused to budge and learned a hard lesson.

Which is: Art does not trump all. There is a growing attitude, especially among young people, that the purpose of art is to confront, to oppose, to shock. If it doesn't offend anybody, the idea goes, it ain't art. But when somebody's helping you out by giving you free exhibition space, you don't piss in their house and then pitch a fit when they clean it up.Your rights to free expression don't trump my right to visit a war memorial without having penises shoved in my face.

And the best part, the very best part, the part which made me laugh out freaking loud when I read it, was this:

Marni Kotak could not find over 10 original drawings, the video documentation of her live performance at the show opening, and most of the elements of her 10’ x 20’ site-specific installation. She found two chalkboard drawings irreparably destroyed. Tamas Veszi could not find his entire site-specific installation, and could only find two damaged paintings and three destroyed sculptures. Neither Fucile, Kotak nor Veszi were allowed to adequately document their site-specific works prior to their demolition.

Do you see? I added some bold emphasis to highlight the part that caught my eye. Do you see why I'm laughing here? She did the drawings on chalkboards. They were meant to be erased. Now, granted, part of the reason was to fit the "school" theme of her entire piece, but even the entire piece was "site-specific." Which means what?

Which means it was meant to be torn down when the exhibition ended. It was all a big meta-statement about the transitory nature of art, or some such such drivel. And what is her big complaint? That she couldn't "properly document" it. Which means what?

Which means that she couldn't take pictures to have a permanent record of her "transitory" artwork. She got bit by her own artistic statement. She tried to circumvent it, and karma kicked her in the ass. You can't make this stuff up.

In other news, I'm still way behind on word count on the novel, but Lost kicked ass on Wednesday and I'm officially in ketosis due to the low-carb thing. Which means what?

Which means it's working. Bad breath, pissing like a racehorse, down 5 pounds since last week. Yeah, a lot of it is water weight, but I don't feel nearly as bloated as I used to and my clothes are starting to fit better. And I'm eating more vegetables now than I was before, so net-net, my diet is healthier. Yeah, in three months or so, I'll be back to eating pizza and french fries and my weight will bounce back up, but over the summer, I'll look good.

Low Carb Madness

So I mentioned I've started working out again. Last time I was working out regularly, I did P90X, which was a killer: six workouts a week, all between an hour and 90 minutes long. But I didn't get the results I wanted, because I didn't change my diet.

This time, I'm not working out regularly, but I've changed my diet. I've started low-carbing. I've done it before and gotten decent results, although it was tough to stick with it, because I couldn't get enough variety in my vegetables. Everything started tasting pretty much the same, and I got really sick of salads. Plus, it was hard to eat out, because nobody offered low-carb alternative meals.

It's easier this time. I've got a better idea of what works for me and what doesn't. I've bought some salad-style vegetables, but also quite a bit of kimchi and other Asian pickled vegetables. My family doesn't like the smell, but I love the taste. And I'm eating low-carb meals at the different fast food places I eat at for lunch. It gets on my nerves, because the low-carb alternatives cost one to two dollars more on average. But at the same time, I'm not as hungry, so I'm saving on snacks. So I guess it's a wash on that score.

Real Writers

Found on deborahb's blog:

...there is still that element in society (let's call them 'jerks') who insist a writer is someone -- and only someone -- who writes every day...

Read the whole thing, and the links, if you're of a mind to. The thing is, I've had the same experience, sitting in some panel discussion with a few pro writers about "How to Become a Pro." And eventually one of them would say something like, "the biggest thing I've learned is that you have to write every day. I write every day. I have to; it's as necessary to me as breathing. And if you don't have that level of compulsive need, to write every day, all the time, you'll never make it as a writer."

And here I am, Young Mister Nobody sitting in the audience, hoping to learn something of value. I've got a way with words, I enjoy putting them on paper sometimes, I've got some stories I'd like to tell. And I'm told, basically, that because I have a life off the page, I can never truly write.

And a part of me wants to jump up and yell, "Bullshit, sez I!" But I don't, partly because at that tender age I don't cuss yet, and partly because she's the pro writer and I'm just the wanna-be kid in the audience, so between the two of us, her words carry the more weight.

And I'd like to say that I held strong and true to my own principles and didn't let such discouragements stand in my way but the fact is, between my own insecurities and blanket statements like the one above, I didn't try to submit anything I wrote until well after I'd dropped out of college. And when I didn't experience instant success, I took that as validation of what the Panel Pros had said, and didn't try to submit again for the better part of ten years. I was told in my sophomore year of high school, at age 15, that I had the potential to become a writer. I didn't get the courage to submit on a regular basis until I was 40. That's 25 years I wasted, wondering whether my lack of obsession/compulsion would disqualify me from ever being a "real" writer.

Not that I didn't write during those years. I did. I just didn't share what I wrote with others, except very rarely. And even when I got good positive feedback from friends, and from professionals like Mike McQuay, I still didn't believe, still didn't submit, still didn't push forward.

And now here I am, with my first story on the verge of official publication (although it's been online in an advance reader's copy for months), and now, NOW FINALLY, somebody else steps forward and says, "You know what? It's okay not to write everyday. It's not required."

Thanks a lot.

On the other hand, I haven't touched Hero Go Home at all in a couple of days, and the deadline is looming, so writing every day is exactly what is required right now, for at least two weeks.

And then I rest.

Weekend Stasis

The weekend was not jam-packed busy (as evidenced by the fact that I was able to hit my 200 book limit on LibraryThing), but the events were spaced out just perfectly to keep me from being able to do any concentrated work on the book. Friday night, OSFW meeting. Saturday morning, T-Ball practice. Saturday afternoon, birthday party, followed by work until ten.

Sunday morning, Mother's Day gift presentation, then the family left for church and I had some peace and quiet. I puttered around a bit, catalogued some books, got some lunch and went to the office. I wrote for about ten minutes and got the call: "We're having company over for late lunch. You need to come home." So I wrap up writing, drive home and play host. Early evening, I start to work out, thinking about sneaking back out to the office after the workout's done. The Wife happens to see me working out and says, "Did you decide to skip Survivor?" Doh! The season finale. I hate the fact that they move the finale to Sunday nights.

So even though I had high hopes of getting big momentum and hitting maybe 70K, the count is only 67,000. 13,000 left to write, 16 days in which to do it.

And it appears that people are already being informed about their stories' outcomes in Writers of the Future. They say in their e-mail that it will take about eight to ten weeks to receive word of your story's fate. Last time I entered, it was more like 13-14 weeks before I received word. But at Friday night's OSFW meeting, one of our members said she had received notice that her story had made quarter-finalist, and it's only been six weeks since the end of the quarter. Perhaps they just had an extraordinarily low story turnout this quarter. K.D. Wentworth told me to write in and ask for an update on my entry, but I think I'll wait at least until the ten weeks are up, since that was teh guideline we were given.

It's kind of weird being up in the air like this. On the one hand, I feel as if I've been swept under the rug and forgotten. On the other, maybe it's because I'm still in the running, as in semi-finalist or even finalist. As long as I don't ask, I won't know for sure that I'm out of it.

A New Time Waster

I got turned on to LibraryThing through a link on one of Matt's friends' blogs. It's really easy to use, and fun to see what I've got, and how obscure most of it is. It allows you to search on either Amazon or Library of Congress or some other libraries, and add the books to your own personal collection. If you get it through Amazon, there's a good chance it'll have a cover graphic with it. It not only displays information about your books, but you can add tags like Flickr, and you can see how many other LibraryThing users share the books in your collection. I've only added a little over a hundred so far (and if I want to add more than 200, I have to pay), and I've found out that no one else has a copy of Blue Falcon (big surprise), and three people have ten of the same 104 books that I've entered. Looking at the books we have in common, I find that all three of them display the same SF/Fantasy/Comics/Movie-related interests that I do, but also (and this really was a surprise), two of them also had The Frugal Gourmet. A popular book among guys who can't cook but want to learn, I guess.

Because let me say this about Jeff Smith. He may have gotten overhyped. He may have made mistakes in his cooking, and some of his recipes really didn't work out that well. But he was the guy that got me cooking for the first time, because he basically said, "It's not about knowing a bunch of technical terms and getting all the measurements right and sweating over a hot stove. It's about having fun and playing around and finding what tastes good and sharing that with the people around you, and most of all, it's about loving food." I've had very few real epiphanies in my life, but the moment I saw my first episode of "Frugal Gourmet," with Jeff Smith making Chicken Piccata and realizing that, hey, I could do that, I was hooked. I had always hated cooking, and failed miserably every time I tried, but that one episode changed my opinion, of cooking and of myself. And though I'm not one of those guys who cooks all the time, I'm no longer afraid of the kitchen, and most times when I cook, I like the results.

And that's huge.

Successful and Not-So-Successful Events

The OSFW meeting last night was pretty cool. We held it in the rare book room of the University of Tulsa library, a gorgeous room full of warm old wood, the walls lined with rare books and artifacts in glass cases. One case held awards and keepsakes from the career of the late science-fiction author R.A. Lafferty, including a pile of old OSFW newsletters. Amazing to be holding a club meeting in a room that treats our old newsletters as museum pieces. Like taking my place in history or something. More amazing to be ostensibly leading the meeting as VP, although I think being in the room intimidated me a little bit, so I ended up deferring to K.D. Wentworth quite a bit. Not that I mind.

Then today, we had The Girl's birthday party at a local park. So of course, today is the day the maintenance crew chose to mow the grass. Because people never go to a park on Saturday. We barely managed to keep the grass clippings out of the cake. I think The Girl liked her present, though. She got herself a big girl bike, so now it'll be harder than ever to keep up with her.

Word count on the novel has not moved at all officially, because the only writing I've done has been longhand, catch-as-catch-can. I'm going to have some free time at work today, though, and I hope to get some of the longhand typed in tonight, so I'll have some official movement by the end of the weekend. I'll give a numbers update on Monday or Tuesday.

I'm a little pissed at the Lost Experience. I was a big fan of the A.I. tie-in game, nicknamed "The Beast." But what started out as an intriguing tie-in game to the TV series has turned into a Sprite marketing thing, directing viewers to a site called subLYMONal.com, where viewers are told to "obey" (recent Sprite marketing campaigns have used the slogan "Obey Your Thirst," while Sprite campaigns in the 70's claimed that the fictional lymon, a hybrid lemon-lime, was the source of Sprite's flavor). Now all they need is for the next food drop to feature Dharma-branded Sprite and I'll give up on Lost for the second time (the first time, which didn't even last a week, was when Sun was able to obtain a convenient pregnancy test from the wreckage of the plane).

Pre-Summer Maintenance

I've never gotten into the whole ritual aspect of "spring cleaning," but the last couple of weeks, I've been doing the equivalent. I've started to work out again, bought some new clothes, cleaned old junk out of my car and my office, changed up my diet, and gotten a haircut. I'd like to get myself in shape and finish the first draft of Hero Go Home by the end of the month, and cruise into summer on a high note.This weekend might be problematic as far as making big progress on the book; writer's group Friday, daughter's birthday party and work Saturday, Mother's Day and work Sunday. But I might be able to sneak some work in there and maybe hit 70,000 by Monday.

The Shoe Finally Drops

I have finally started the big finale. No more exposition. No more folks sitting around barrooms or conference rooms chatting. Just action and suspense in one long rollercoaster to the finish.

The Good: A successful conclusion to the first draft is now virtually assured, and perhaps in as little as a week and a half. Plus, writing this thing should be a blast, with plenty of cowbell for everyone.

The Not-So-Good: Once again, I may have peaked early. I've got 14,000 words between here and the end. Do I really have 14,000 words worth of material? I don't know. I can't really worry about it now, I guess. Just write the best climax I can and worry about length later, in revisions.

The Numbers: 66,000 words. The Goal: 14,000 words in 21 days (Or 666 words a day-instead of a K a day, I've now just got to write an Antichrist a day).

If you want in on the Free Drinks for Frazier's Ass-Kickers Night, it's time to start kicking...

Infodumping

I've reached a scene I've both anticipated and dreaded. Anticipated, because it explains things I've been hinting at throughout the book and because it sets up almost everything you need to know for the finale. Dreaded, because, well, it's an infodump. I wrote a pass at it last night, and it's a little over one thousand words of pure dialogue. It flows pretty well, as infodumps go, and I've got a couple of tricks to pull that will break it up some and hopefully keep it from being overwhelming or completely boring. But I need this scene to work, because it basically explains everything that went before and set up everything after. If it doesn't work, the whole book is kinda screwed.

The big thing is that when this scene ends, we go straight into the climactic arc, so I guess I better start figuring it all out. Yeah, I know, I said I had it planned already. I have the ending planned, and some middle bits, but I'm kind of fuzzy on how it gets to those middle bits. Word count: about 63,000. Goal: 17,000 words in 23 days.

Yoga Still Sucks

It was better this morning (having not done it in almost a year) than it was the first time I tried it, but it still sucked.

Dismal

The first week of the "K a Day" challenge is a dismal failure. Instead of a K a day, I barely managed a K in a week. On the other hand, I have worked out a couple of times this week, so my entire body is a throbbing mass of pain.

The Countdown Begins

So happy May Day. It's May 1, and the official word count on the first draft is 60,000. My goal is 80,000 by May 31st. So I have thirty days to write 20,000 words. That's less than a k a day. If I could average a k a day, I'd either get done 10 days early, or else I'd end up with a much longer book, around 90,000 words, which might be more sellable. Plotwise, everything is getting lined up for the big climax. Another couple thousand words, and it's all about watching the dominoes fall. I can't wait to see how the big climax plays out. I'm hoping for a thrilling ride.