by john | Sep 29, 2011 | Business of publishing, Writing
Well yesterday was certainly fun hanging around at Magical Words and answering questions. It was nice to have folks say that I did things “the right way,” but of course everyone’s mileage will vary with how they go about stuff.
One thing was brought up in comments that I’ll talk about here briefly. Someone asked if I’d had any friends who had self-published and not sold anything, and what I did when they asked me why. Basically asking – how do I handle it when a friend asks me to read something that’s crap or not ready to be sent out for submission or publication.
Well – here are a couple of answers.
First – I don’t know, because since I’ve started publishing I’ve only read stuff by three of my friends with an eye towards critique, and they all knew exactly where their work was with regards to its completion. The first friend knew that her book was in first draft format and needed a lot of love. This was some months ago, and we swapped critiques on her book and Knight Moves before I released it. She gave me some really helpful tips for my book’s third draft, and I hope that I helped her work out some plot points and get her book moving in the right direction for her second draft.
The second friend sent me a copy of her manuscript after I asked to see it, and it’s almost ready to go. It’s a good story, but there are a couple of spots in the beginning that I think need to be re-organized or tweaked somehow, but I think this one is a very publishable book and a darn fun story. And she knew when she sent it to me that it needed a little love, but was further along than Friend A’s book.
The third friend had a short story that had already been published, but she now had the rights back and wanted help with the mechanics of converting and uploading the story. It was polished and ready to go, and she didn’t need me to tell her that. :).
So I’ve been really lucky that I haven’t had any deluded buddies come up and tell me about their book that’s sure to be a bestseller once it gets out in the world. I have only looked over manuscripts from people who are serious about the craft of writing, have paid some dues in the writing biz, and have a good sense of where their book is in its development. I suppose I need to set a policy of reading unpublished work (or not), because that’s the kind of thing that can get somebody in trouble if they’re not careful. So I guess here it is – if you don’t know me well enough to call me on the phone, I probably won’t read your unpublished book and offer critique. It’s a litigious society out there and I have to protect myself.
What I find more often than anything is that my friends have delusions of mediocrity. I have some really good writers that I’m friends with, and some of you guys aren’t putting anything out there. Come on! Get the stories out, get some feedback, really get a sense of where you are along the continuum of writing talent and skill. I’ve developed a pretty good sense of where I am (happy to be a hack), and I don’t let it hold me back! So here’s my challenge for all of you writer-types out there – submit something in the month of October. I don’t care what it is, but you must submit. And I’ll go with you. I promise that in the month of October I’ll create a piece and submit it somewhere that I’ve never been published before. So I’ll find an anthology or magazine, and I’ll submit right alongside you. We can track our progress here together. I bet one of you gets a piece accepted before I do.
by john | Sep 23, 2011 | Writing
Well, yeah, I kinda am, I guess.
Enough equivocation in that sentence for ya? Suzy, who knows full well exactly how crazy I am, asked me roughly that question when I told her I’d come up with a new character for a new series of stories. I replied that Bubba the Monster Hunter is not necessarily going to be a novel-length character, but he’s somebody fun to play around with while I’m between longer works. The first story, Voodoo Children, is out now, and available wherever e-books are sold (it’s free on Smashwords, BTW, and hopefully will be free on Amazon before too long, but I have only limited control over that). But Bubba is just a fun side project, and as the Black Knight books have been taking a little bit of a darker turn, Bubba gives me the opportunity to let my sense of humor have free reign. And since I’m not AT ALL gearing the Bubba stories towards younger readers, they’re free to have more profanity and adult situations than some of my other work.
In a sense, Bubba stories are just fun stories about a giant redneck behaving poorly and killing monsters in the process. And being a somewhat larger-than-life redneck in reality, I enjoy behaving badly, so it’s a big chunk of my id running around loose yelling WOOO-HOOOOO and “Hey Y’all, watch this!” I’m always going to have about eighty-seven different projects in the fire at one time, that’s just the kinda guy I am. Look at this weekend – I want to finish edits on The Chosen in preparation for a relaunch of that book with a new cover, new edits and maybe (just maybe) some bonus material. Then I want to write and do the cover for a second Bubba story (Bubba goes to the Circus), and I’ve got a buddy doing a book signing that I want to go to, the Panthers are playing (hoping for the first win!), I have to drive to Atlanta for the day job, and now that at least one beta reader has told me that Return to Eden isn’t a total piece of crap, I need to start working on a cover and edits for that books. So I’ve got a lot going on, not the least of which needs to be taking a HUGE box of DVDs to the used DVD joint to try and unload them and cover my bar tab in Atlanta this coming week.
Oh wait, I’m on a diet. So much for a bar tab. Guess I’ll just sell off the DVDs to get them out of the house.
On a completely different note – as writers, or any type of creative person really, do we ever get over that terrified feeling of being the awkward kid asking the pretty girl to dance? When I finished Return to Eden I was convinced that it was crap, the worst book ever written, and that no one would ever want to buy it. In my saner moments I knew this was not likely to be true, since I felt the same way about every book I’ve ever written, and they all turned out to be okay in the end. But when I sent that poor little book out to my betas, I didn’t feel like a proud papa watching his kid go off to school for the first time. I felt more like the pizza-faced skinny kid with glasses who sent a rose to the cute girl in middle school then found out that she didn’t like him and he had to get the rose back and send it to someone else “as a friend” despite the entire seventh grade knowing about the whole thing and making him feel small like only middle school kids can do.
Yeah, that happened. What can I say? I wasn’t always the pantheon of cool that I am today.
But anyway, sending a new book out still feels like being that middle-school kid again. All awkward and nervous, just waiting for someone to slap you down, despite the experiential evidence to the contrary. What about you writer types? Do you still get butterflies when you send out a book to the first readers?
by john | Sep 16, 2011 | Writing
I have a problem, I know. But here’s a new character that I think is going to be a lot of fun to play around with. He’s going to be short stories only for now, but expect at least one a month for the near future. Ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you, please allow me to introduce Bubba the Monster Hunter.
Voodoo Children – a Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Story
Skeeter gave me the skinny as I cruised through the sorry excuse for a town. You like that? It’s funny, ‘cause he’s skinny, and I said…never mind. I guess you had to be there. Well anyways, apparently there had been a bunch of robberies on the eastern side of Columbia, where what passed for hillbilly high society lived. One of the robbers had been caught in the act, which was usually a good thing, because robbers tended to talk when arrested. Problem was, this robber had a long criminal record. A criminal record that ended in 1987, when he died in a drunk driving accident. So the local constabulary (I don’t know why the hell Skeeter can’t just call them the po-po like everybody else) had consulted with the nearest Catholic Church, which happened to be in Nashville. Nashville didn’t have very many exorcists on staff right now, thanks to a bad case of non-belief in these here United States, so they kicked it up the food chain until they finally got to Skeeter’s uncle Joe.
Now most of Skeeter’s family didn’t talk to Uncle Joe, because of the whole turning Catholic thing, but most of them didn’t talk to Skeeter neither, because of the whole liking boys thing. So Skeeter and Uncle Joe got to be buds, because they was the only people who talk to either of them at the family reunions, except for Aunt Linda, who had cerebral palsy and didn’t know enough to do anything but love everybody. So whenever something came across Uncle Joe’s desk that seemed to need my particular talents, he sent his favorite nephew a little email, and we went out and killed a bunch of something. We weren’t officially on the church’s payroll, but since we weren’t all that holy, we got to keep any loot the bad guys we smoked were hiding. And supernatural bad guys usually kept some pretty good loot around, so we made ends meet. And when we didn’t, Skeeter whored me out as security for rock concerts.
I pulled into the cemetery at around ten o’clock, which I figured would be good zombie-raising time. It was dark, and the zombies would have plenty of time to shamble off to wherever they were being sent, steal stuff and bring it back before the sun came up. I didn’t know if voodoo zombie could run around in daylight or not, but I preferred to do my killing in the dark. Just always seemed fitting that way.
I knew I’d come to the right place because the gate was wide open. Most cemeteries are pretty good about locking the gate at dark. Not usually for keeping things in, but mostly for keeping kids out. I never saw the appeal to making out in a graveyard myself, but I’ve been killing things that go bump in the night for a long time, so I reckon the place has kinda lost its luster for me.
The three dead guys walking down the path to the gate were the other indication I’d found the right place. I pulled the truck into the graveyard and pulled the gate shut behind me. I took a piece of chain out of my toolbox and fastened the gates shut. I didn’t have a lock, so I ran a piece of baling wire through the links to hold the chain together. I kinda figured zombies wouldn’t have the manual dexterity to unwind a piece of wire. If they did, my troubles were just starting.
By the time I secured the gate, the three zombies walking my way had turned into eight zombies, with two of them standing right in front of my truck. I walked up to one of them and gave him a push in the chest. He fell over backwards, then lumbered to his feet and tried to take a bite out of my face. I swung my machete through his neck and then pushed his body back down. Headless, he stayed there like he was supposed to this time.
I pushed the button in my ear. “Good call, Skeeter. They’re pretty damn slow.”
“That’s good, but don’t underestimate them. There may be quite a lot of them, and they don’t feel pain. You can’t just sever the spinal cord, like with vampires; you have to destroy the brain. Otherwise they can grown back together and attack again.”
“Ow! Now you tell me!” I said as the head I’d just chopped off took a big bite out of one calf. I tossed the machete aside and pulled my battle-axe from my belt. At five feet of sharp steel and bad attitude, that axe promised pain to anything in its path. Too bad for me nothing I was fighting could feel pain. I stomped on the detached head with my other boot, putting one hand on the hood of my truck for balance and finally kicking the head free. It rolled across the graveyard, coming to rest against a headstone.
“I’ll deal with you later, asshole.” I muttered.
“What was that, boss?”
“Not you, Skeeter. Now lemme go do some killin’. I’ll call you back.” I pressed the button in my ear and looked around again. All seven remaining zombies were gathered around my truck, bumping into it as they tried to walk forward.
“Alright, assholes!” I yelled, waving the axe in the air to try and get their attention. “Get the hell off my truck! I just had her detailed!” One zombie turned to follow me as I walked out from behind the truck, and I caved in its skull. Pain sensors or not, twelve pounds of axe in your head will ruin your day. I pulled it free and spun around, crushing two more zombies with one big swing. Problem was, that big swing ended in a big tree, and my big axe got stuck big time. I tried for a minute to pull it out, but when a pair of dead hands grabbed my ponytail, I returned my attention to the problem at hand.
I solved the problem in my hair with Bertha, my polished chrome Mark XIX .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistol. I pressed Bertha under the thing’s chin and squeezed the trigger, removing most of the top of the zombie’s skull. I used my left hand to knock the thing’s hands off my hair, then dispatched the other four zombies in fairly quick succession with Bertha. When I’d splattered the last one’s brains all over the ground, I gave Bertha a little kiss on the rear sight, replaced her half-spent magazine with a full one, and put her away in her holster. Then I walked over to the grave marker with the last zombie head lying against it, reared back my size fourteen steel-toe boot, and kicked the head to jelly.
If you like that, then you can go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and buy the whole thing. It should be available by tomorrow (Saturday). Or you can hit the drop-down menu below and I’ll email it to you for a buck!
by john | Sep 14, 2011 | Book Spotlight, Real Life, Writing
So I’ve been reading a lot.
A lot.
And since I had no idea what to write about here today I figured I’d give you some recommendations based on my recent experiences sorting through the world of book-dom. Most of these books will be by indie or self-published authors, just because that’s where most of my book-buying dollars go right now. And I might whine a little about cliffhangers, but that’s kinda what I do, so get over it.
Let’s start with a series I just finished up on a couple days ago. This weekend was all about teh football, so it’s only fitting that I alternated between watching football and reading about space football with Scott Sigler and his Galactic Football League series. Starting off with The Rookie, this (currently) three-book series traces the career of young Quentin Barnes, one of the most talented humans to ever play football. But this is football some seven hundred years in the future, so humans aren’t the only species playing! With wide receivers that can jump twenty feet in the air, giant monster linemen that would literally eat a quarterback for lunch, and linebackers that deliver fatal tackles, this bunch makes the Raiders look like guests at a tea party.
Sigler obviously loves his football, and the descriptions of the games are amazing. I love the arc he’s taking this character through, as well. Barnes is a fallible, annoying, pretentious shithead of a quarterback, but buried inside him is a moral compass that just keeps steering him towards the right answers. When he can get his head out of his ass long enough to listen. The supporting cast is just as awesome – John Tweedy is a psycho linebacker that reminds me of the crazy dude in The Replacements, Don Pine is the old vet on his way out, and the others well-crafted and fill the archetypes of a team really, really well. There are cut scenes with sportscasters that are funny as hell, and the only thing in the books that drag a little are the “excerpts” from historical texts that set up information that we as readers need, but they get a little info-dumpy and could probably be cut altogether and not hurt the story at all. But that’s a little quibble, and harder SF fans than me will love that kind of deep galaxy-building stuff. So go buy the first one, it’s awesome!
By the way, I don’t get bupkiss if you click the link here. I’m not an Amazon affiliate anymore because Amazon and the state of NC got into a staring contest a couple years ago and Amazon cancelled the affiliate program for NC residents. So I just provide the links for convenience, I don’t actually get anything out of them. On Smashwords, I get a little kickback if you buy the book through my affiliate link.
But since I finished the third book in the GFL series (SIGLER YOU BUTTMONKEY I HATE CLIFFHANGERS!!!) (sorry, that just kinda happens sometimes, I think my fingers have Turrette’s) I’ve been splitting time between Chuck Wendig’s 250 Things You Should Know About Writing and Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind. Wendig is maybe the most delightfully profane writer I’ve discovered since Garth Ennis, and Rothfuss is maybe the best writer I’ve discovered since Neil Gaiman. So I’ve reading Wendig’s advice on how to be a better writer so I don’t puke myself to death over not being as good a writer as Rothfuss. If you’re a writer, you should also follow Wendig’s blog, Terribleminds. If you’re not a writer but would like to see exactly how batshit crazy we all are, you could still read Terribleminds.
And why does my spellchecker not recognize batshit as a word? Dumbass machines. Obv. we are NOT ready for SkyNet today. Unless they’re masquerading as dumbass machines to hide that fact that SkyNet has already happened, in which case they’re really smart machines and we’re dumbass humans. Which makes more sense. But scares the crap out of me.
After that last paragraph I’m going to go hide in the bathtub with my kindle and a four-foot stack of Transmetropolitan trade paperbacks. What? You haven’t read Transmetropolitan? How are we even friends? Now I’ll be in my tub with my kindle, my Transmet, and a jar of moonshine marvelling at my illiterate friends and drinking myself blind. See you Friday.
by john | Sep 12, 2011 | Writing
So I may have mentioned here that a couple of weeks ago I decided to completely blow up Return to Eden and start over (or at least mostly start over). That wasn’t a lot of fun, but I’m pretty sure it was necessary. I had more characters running around in there than an X-Men reboot, and trying to drive nine or ten characters in a 65,000 word book just wasn’t working for me. So I killed off a bunch of characters (or more to the point made them never exist in the first place), cut the first couple thousand words to start the book with more tension right off the bat, and started rewriting.
I’m almost 20,000 words in now, and think I’m making good progress. I’ve got the apocalypse started, and my protagonists are hiding out from the world while it goes to hell. We’re about to have the first major confrontation with the remnants of polite society, as it were, and then things are really going to take off, magic-wise. I still hope to have the first draft ready to go by early October, but it might take a little longer. I hope not, because from a business standpoint I need another book on the market by Christmas, and it obviously now will not be a Black Knight Chronicles book. So it’s either going to be this guy, or the serial killer thriller, and I’m not really sure which one would work better.
What do you guys think would be a better draw for the holiday book market? A thriller about a serial killer who copycats a fictional serial killer who in turn copycats real serial killers and the female FBI agent who chases him? Or the first book in a trilogy about magic-wielding teens surviving the collapse of modern civilization?
I’ll admit to a little post-Con slump the past week or so, though. Sales took a little dip after Dragon, probably because the higher prices hit for Hard Day’s Knight and Knight Moves. And I hit a little writer’s slump, too. I don’t believe in writer’s block, but there are definitely days when it comes easier than others. The past week has been living firmly in the “others” camp. Every word is like pulling teeth, and it’s a chore just to sit down at the computer. But once I can get rolling (and get the cat off the keyboard, which he has suddenly decided is his favorite perch) things move along quite nicely. It’s just focusing for that hour or so each night that’s tough right now.
I know, I know – quit whining! I landed a book contract, I’m making a great supplemental income writing make-believe, and I’m even approaching the point where I’m thinking about doing this full-time. So shut up and write, already! I know. But it’s just like any other job – sometimes there are things you’d rather do. And this is perfect hammock weather, is all I’m saying.
So tonight I’ll go home, eat with Suzy, watch an episode of Angel (we never watched the whole show when it was on, but we’re up to season three on Netflix), and then go try to drag a thousand or so unruly words out of my head. But you kids let me know what I should put out for Christmas – the magical kids novel or the serial killer thriller.
by john | Sep 9, 2011 | Real Life, Writing
True story. This is one of those things that could only really happen at a con, and it tells a lot about the type of people who work in the fantasy/SF genres.
So there I was, hungry. It was Saturday at Dragon*Con, and I was bouncing from panel to panel like a psychotic superball. Suzy had stayed in the room to have some room service breakfast and take her time getting ready before facing the mob. I had hit a 10AM panel, an 11:30 panel, a 1PM panel, and was on my way to blow off a 3PM panel and have lunch instead, because I was starving and the restaurant at the Hyatt in downtown Atlanta has amazing fried chicken. No really, it’s awesome. And as a fat redneck, I’m something of an expert in fried chicken.
So I moseyed over to the restaurant, and asked the couple hanging around the entrance if they’re in line. They said no, and scooted over out of my way as the hostess sat the folks that were in line ahead of me. I noticed the guy had a guest ribbon, so I peeked a little closer to see if I could catch his name. I saw that his tag said “Larry Dixon,” and I blurted out, “Oh! You’re the artist!”
He smiled and nodded and extended his hand. I shook his hand, and reached into my briefcase, saying that he was one of the people I most wanted to meet this weekend, because I had a well-loved (battered) copy of Magic’s Pawn that I was hoping that he and Mercedes Lackey would autograph for me. He looked at it, chuckled at the obviously oft-read condition, and mentioned that it was the first book he and “Misty” had done together. He graciously signed it for me, giving me bookplates with his and Mercedes’ signatures on them for all three books in the series. He then gave me a couple of bookmarks, I gave him one of mine, and he asked if I was going to the Baen Books roadshow. I said no, that I was starving and was going to eat instead.
He then said, “Well come with us to the Baen thing, and I’ll get Misty to bring us some food from the room.” I wasn’t really sure at this point, but I was pretty certain that he meant Mercedes Lackey whenever he said “Misty.” Not knowing her outside of her work, I didn’t know she went by Misty to some folks. I said, sure, why not, and we toddled off to the Baen roadshow with his friend Smokie. On the way, he called Mercedes and asked her to bring down some food for him and this other hungry guy he’d just met. We grabbed a few seats near the back, and I went to grab a couple of sodas. Larry offered to buy, but I put him off, saying he was getting food, I’d get the Cokes. So I sat down, chatting with Larry and Smokie, and a few minutes later in comes Mercedes Lackey with a bag full of food! Larry passed the selection up to me, and I grabbed a Lunchables (Ham & Cheese) meal. We enjoyed the Baen show, and afterwards I got Mercedes to autograph my book, and I gave her a copy of Back in Black, the book that was very much influenced by her work. She insisted that I sign it, and I did, although I was a little embarrassed to be signing a book for one of my favorite authors, but I did, and it was all very cool.
But that’s the kind of thing that only happens at a con. I was waiting in line for fried chicken, met one of the most famous fantasy authors in the business, and Mercedes Lackey brought me Lunchables.
Side note – the reason I wanted them to sign Magic’s Pawn was because that book was the first thing I ever read that talked about gay people as people, not caricatures. Being raised in the rural South in the seventies and eighties, there were no positive examples of gays in my life. Reading Magic’s Pawn let me see gay people as normal, which has impacted a lot of my life since then, particularly my life in theatre, where there is no place for homophobia. Obviously homophobia is a big theme in Back in Black, and I honestly felt that I couldn’t have written that book had I not read Magic’s Pawn all those years ago. It changed my worldview, and I wanted her to know that. I think she got it. Another book that broke down the walls of prejudice for me was Chris Claremont’s run on X-Men, particularly an issue where Kitty Pryde rescues Nightcrawler from an angry mob that is going to attack him for the color of his skin (fur). Kitty talks about how her grandparents were sent to the camps because they were Jewish, different, just like Nightcrawler. It’s no less wrong to hate someone for their skin color than it is for their religion or ethnicity. Or sexuality. Those stories had a huge impact on me at an important age, and they have stuck with me for decades. I’m honored to have been given the chance to tell one of the creators of the impact they made on me.
