Transition

It’s – not quite spring.

You can tell it wants to be. I saw my first robin three weeks ago. The sun is strong and melty. The porters and stouts are slowly disappearing from the taps.

It won’t be long before buds will start to pop, coats will get stowed away, and our pale Minnesota skin will get its first splash of color.

Transition.

I wish I could say it was just the weather.

I’m very much a creature of habit – a fussy Virgo. I like my things just so. I like to know what I’m going to do each day. I want to know where I’m going to get my coffee. I don’t want the day to suddenly get one hour longer.

So why am I an IT consultant? Why do I have a job that can change on a dime, and take me to God only knows where?

Why am I choosing to move? Why am I cleaning out, digging through old memories, sorting away those I want to keep and wincing as I throw away those that no longer hold the meeting they once did?

And what am I doing with my writing? I’m so close to done – months away from being a bona fide published author – and yet my day job and the move pull me away and into chaos.

Transition.

And yet I’m thankful for all of it.

I’m blessed to work with good people, to have the means to move, and to have the time – however little it seems some days – to write.

Here’s to transition – and may it settle the fuck down.

A Crisis of Gagh

Those of you who are loyal readers of this blog know things have been a little angst-ish around here lately. Jon's deep into the middle of his first draft and Lisa's contemplating both the end of one journey and the possible beginning of another. As for me, I just finished my latest draft. You would think I would be pretty stoked about that, but I'm not. I'm going to keep the angst train alive, kids, at least for a little while.

So what's my problem? I'm worried it's still not ready.

If I were to take the traditional publishing route, my next step would be to find an agent and through that process I would find out if it's ready or not.

Problem solved, right?

Unfortunately, I have no intention of doing that. Ironic, eh?

So where does that leave me? On my own. Yes, I have the Scribblerati as well as friends, family, and the Lovely Leann, but at the end of the day it's all going to come down to me.

Am I ready to set my baby free?

I think so. I hope so.

Could I make To Kill the Goddess better? Probably. Most likely. After all, it was Leonardo da Vinci who said, "Art is never completed, only abandoned." At some point I have to follow Leo's advice and cut this bad boy loose, but there are a thousand articles and posts out there in the inter-webs screaming about how you will ruin your career if you self publish before your book is ready. I know most of those articles are meant for people who do NaNoWriMo in November and then put their book on Amazon in December, but that doesn't mean those articles aren't true.

I know my book is better than before. It feels good, like a proton torpedo ready to slide down the exhaust shaft, but still – I worry and maybe I shouldn't. After all, I'm confident that worse has been published. Look no farther than Fifty Shades of Gray or Mockingjay, which I'm currently choking down like a big plate of squirming gagh.

 So maybe I should quit this pansy-ass worrying and just take the plunge. Maybe what I have is good enough. I've thought that before. Maybe I just need to take my own advice.

Crafty

The Vonnegut quote Claudia included in her most recent blog resonated with me, being the crafty grrl I am. (Ooh! Just had an image of my grave stone: "Here lies a Crafty Girl, Dreaming of Wool" So sweet!) I've always loved making things by hand, learning new arts and crafts. And tho' I am good at some of the stuff I try my hand at, other stuff - not so much. But in the doing of it all, I do feel like I'm settling into my rightful bones. And I know that getting to that joy is only a needle, a pencil, a thread away.

Quilt by Annie Mae Young

But even though I know that I can pretty much always be creative, there is a fear I'm currently living within.

For now, I have done what I can do on my current WIP. Uncountable drafts. Trimmed 40,000 words. With my fellow Scribblerati's help, grown tremendously as a writer. (Nestled within my pile of scratch paper are pages from my early drafts of Once We Were Bears. When one surfaces to the top? Oh, how I cringe, reading my first, floundering attempts at writing.) I am proud of what I've done. Even if I never see Beryl in print, writing her into existence as kept me more sane, more happy than I would have been without her. And I know I'll always be proud of what I've accomplished - I wrote a book. I freakin' wrote a goddamn book! Not everyone can say that.

But what if this is it? I've tried my hand that this craft, loved doing it, got a finished product, but what if that well's dry now and it's time to move on to the next medium. My writing groupmates are inspirational with their writing down their many, many ideas for their next stories, with their being a good ways through next novels as they finish the editing on last one. Not me. I do have one idea, but the inner critic is awfully loud right now. And I don't have a flood of ideas. Just that one little drop.

I tell myself that it might just be my personality - I really like finishing something completely before I move on to the next project. But I am sensing glimmers of hope: as I've been drawing to a close with Beryl, I've noticed images floating to the surface of my consciousness. Pears fragrant in their ripeness. Tiny scrawls of writing along the curve of flower petals. A rippled pool.

How to live with fear and not be stymied by it? Well, for one, I'm gonna try my idea out on Scribblerati. And I'm gonna keep listening to the burbling until I can make out the words.

On Not Being Able to See the Trees, Let Alone the Forest.

I've been working through a Beta Reader's comments for the last month. And I am stuck.

In the past, I've often put aside readers' comments when they've suggested changes that felt too big. I'd think, "Perhaps what they are suggesting would work, but I'd rather do that sort of major reworking on the suggestion of an editor/agent. I'll get this as good as I can get it within my own vision, send it off, and if an agent is interested but wants a shift in direction, I'll more seriously contemplate major rewriting then." Sometimes I worry I'm just being lazy: "ACK, change too big, take too long, just put that one aside." But being more charitable, I also think I'm following the inner voice of the story when I accept or reject my peers' suggestions.

And why I'm feeling particularly lost at the moment is that my Beta Reader put her finger on that inner voice and pushed until it was screaming at me: "Lisa, there is a major problem here! I've been trying to tell you this, why haven't you been listening? The lovely and very, very smart Sofia agrees! Now will you believe already?" And what Sofia and Inner Voice are suggesting scares me, because I don't yet know how to fix the problem. The story is so written into my cells, that I don't know what it becomes if I completely rewrite the middle section. A crisis of imagination. A serious crisis of imagination.

I haven't found my way through, but I figure the only way to find my way through is by writing. Right now I'm trying a medium fix - keeping the middle section close to what it has been, but trimming it down, mainly by merging and deleting characters. But I keep getting stuck by not knowing if what I'm doing is for the good. And that is a new experience for me. Whenever I've taken on Scribblerati suggestions, I can sense as I'm writing that I'm taking the piece to a new level. It's a tangible feeling of rightness. And I haven't been feeling that over the past month and so I have no idea whether my changes have any value. (Thank the stars and the moon for my writing program, Scrivener, which allows for very easily creating new versions and reverting back to older ones. I keep myself going by telling myself I'm just playing - these changes don't have to be real ones, Lisa, we're just having a bit of fun here and experimenting.)

It's odd. Trying to trust the Inner Voice, and feeling at the very same time that I've completely lost my ability to self-evaluate my writing.

Perhaps it's time to follow in Shawn's footsteps and start from scratch...Oof.

Today's Literary News (AKA My Dystopian Thursday Morning)

The Tweets just kept coming today, one thunder crack after another signaling doom and gloom for the publishing industry. It was like peering through Twitter's looking glass and seeing into the Big 6's dystopian future.

First there was this:

From @GalleyCat

Adult mass paperback sales plunged 54 percent in September while eBook sales rose 100 percent: http://mbist.ro/srAdhg

I've been anticipating numbers like that, but it's still surprising to see them in print.


And then there was this spooky bit:

By 2016, e-book revenues from portable devices will reach nearly $10 billion and bookstores that don’t merge digital and traditional commerce may face extinction

Now I'm imagining the pages of old books blowing through empty strip mall parking lots.

And finally, there was this piece of holiday joy: How many Christmases until we see a whole new industry?

Which is neatly summarized by these two quotes:

John Makinson, the global CEO of Penguin, was quoted in a Reuters article saying that the post-Christmas period in publishing coming up is “tougher to predict” than “any time that I can remember”. Asked what he sees in the immediate future, Makinson replied “dark clouds.”

The pace of the digital switchover is quickening. That will reduce the cash available to invest in building a new ecosystem at the same time the urgency of coming up with new answers is rising. It’s enough to make a sober executive, even at a very large, successful, smart, and innovative company, admit to serious concern for the industry’s future 

But in good Hollywood fashion, we'll end with a ray of hope striking out from deep within the gloom:

IndieBound Reader is an ebook reading application [... that] allows book lovers to read ebooks purchased at their local, independent bookstores.

Thank goodness, right? I've been wondering how much longer it would be before the independents began to get their act together.

Oh, and an interesting closing note: The Bookcase in Wayzata (a real nice bookstore, BTW) is where Claudia and I went to see Leanna Renee Hieber, Friend of The Scribblerati.

Aren't you glad I shared?

NPR's Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books

So I don't know about the rest of you fine and devoted readers, but it seems like I've been barely caring my weight around here lately. I blame it entirely on the WIP but have no fear, the Beta Draft is a sword thrust away from being complete!! More on that later…

Here, for your Labor Day enjoyment, is NPR’s Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books, along with some thoughts of my own, some nice pics, yada yada…

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

well of course

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

the first of many that I've never actually read. Every time I say I've never read this everybody's like, what??? I know, I know. But when I was in high school and this was popular EVERYONE was reading it and then just turned me off. Yes, I'm one of those people.

3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

I've extolled the virtues of this book before, along with a few others.

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert

I've read the first one. It's good. Not like, “fourth best book ever good,” but good.

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

Okay, so, The Scribblerati kept telling me two things about this book: that it was frakking awesome, and that my WIP was similar. So what did I do? I didn't read it, and I still haven't, but I have seen the HBO series and OMG is it frakking awesome! And yes, there are several similarities between it and my WIP.

6. 1984, by George Orwell

never read it (this is the beginning of a trend).

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

Nope.

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

Started but never finished the first one. That was way back when I was just when I was just a young un so to be fair probably I should probably give it another shot.

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Uh, no. Noticing a trend here?

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Now I have to say, I really don't have anything against Neil Gaiman. I think he's a really talented writer but I just don't honestly get why everybody is all Ga-Ga Pants for everything he writes. It just doesn't melt my butter.

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

Really? #11?

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan

I read the first one and I thought it was pretty good, good enough to buy the second and then I was like, man am I tired of all the series where you have to wait forever in between books. I'm just gonna wait until it's all done.

Still waiting…

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell

OK, I get it, but do people feel obligated to vote these kind of stories or something?

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

**embarrassed** I really should do something about this….

15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore

Fascinating. A graphic novel made the NPR list! But then that opens up all sorts of arguments about why this or that graphic novel didn't make the list. And there's some really great stuff out there…


16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

Oh, that's not what they meant…

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

Now here's a “classic” that I actually have read. I read it when I was a teenager, which may be why I haven't read any more like this. It was good, but I was really more into a lot of things that haven't made the list yet.

18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss

Never heard of it.

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

Nope.

20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

oh please…

21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

Care to guess?

22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood

I’ve heard of Margaret Atwood, of course, but not the book.

23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King

Only #23? SERIOUSLY PEOPLE! Even with the lackluster ending in the final volume this is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever produced.

24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke

Eh…

25. The Stand, by Stephen King

I really need to read this.

26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman

Nope.

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

No, but the move totally frakked with my teenage head.

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

I'm guessing the shower scene in the book is nowhere as near as exciting as it is in the movie.

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

I read several of these when I was really young and I wish I still had them – where did they go?

34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller

36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys

39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells

No, not her. I've never read the book, but I remember watching the classic movie adaptation back in the 80s, when I was 12ish. They were running it on that, what was it? Masterpiece Theatre on TNT? It blew my mind.

40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny

Finally were getting into some good stuff! I must have read the first five half-dozen times and while the second five started out with serious promise they really sputtered out at the end.

41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings

LOVE THESE! Yes they are full of tropes but they are fun!

42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Beautiful book. 42 is a disservice.

43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson

??

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven

45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

This isn't a real book….

47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White

48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke

50. Contact, by Carl Sagan

Great movie. And who doesn’t love Jodi Foster?

51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons

Not even in the top 50 - such a shame! I love these books so much I want to marry them!

52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks

55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

Haven't read it but ...

 

56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

??

57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson

I read the first one and, well, not so much…

59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett

61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind

Another one that I read the first novel of and not any more. No offense to Mr. Goodkind, but it makes me wonder, how many times can we write that same story again and again?

63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

Weird book. I got like 100 pages in and still nothing had happened…

65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

Okay, I probably should read that.

66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist

These books are like yummy candy.

67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks

Okay, so I probably shouldn't like these as much as I do, but damn I love these. Let me just say, there's a reason that the magic wielding people in my WIP are called Druids and it starts and ends with Terry Brooks.

 
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard

Jason moma Man Crush!

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne

I think those Robin Hobb books should probably be on my list.


73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore

Sweet! These make me want to get out my dragon dice.

74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi

75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey

78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin

I read this for a class in college and it single-handedly got me re-interested in science fiction after years of being nothing but a fantasy junkie.

79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson

Never heard of it.

82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

Or this one.

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

This is one of the first novels I ever read. I don't even think I was 10 and I was slogging through this one page at a time. But if there was one thing that's true then that is still true now, it's that there isn't enough magic.

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher

87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe

88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn

Two words: Mara Jade!

These are easily the best Star Wars novels ever written. The only thing that comes close is Michael Stakpole’s X-Wing series.

89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan

90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock

Oh, Elric of Melnibone, I totally have a hard on for Stormbringer, even if it does eat souls.

91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury

92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov

95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

Weird book.

99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony

I don't think I could read this today, but at the time, when I was a teenager, these were full of awesome.

100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Well, that's it friends. Thanks for sticking in there. It was a blast!



I'll leave you with this curious omission...

On Diversicon and the Success of Amanda Hocking

So a couple of writing groups, a senior editor at Tor, and a bunch of writing enthusiasts go to a con…

No, that isn't the start of a really poor joke, that's what happened at Diversicon last weekend. The Scribblerati were there, as were some of the Wyrdsmiths and several others. We, The Scribblerati, hosted a panel on writing groups and then we attended several other of the sessions. It was our first con and we’re all glad we went, but now that we have dipped our toes into the great pool of con-dom (get your mind out of the gutter) we’re ready for more. I think Wiscon or Convergence might be in our future. Stay tuned!

Among the many things I heard at Diversicon, one offhand comment really caught my attention. The comment was made about self-publishing and was made in a rather disdainful in tone. It went something like this, “there's a clear difference in quality of self published books.”

The Diversicon comment wasn't the first time I've heard that opinion about the quality of self published books. I've done a lot of research on self-publishing because, as longtime readers of this blog know, I have been thinking long and hard about self-publishing my WIP, To Kill the Goddess. But one thing I hadn't done (until recently) is actually buy a self published book and read it. So, a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to check out some of the competition. Who better to start with then someone who has turned themselves into a millionaire by self-publishing?

I chose Switched (Tryelle Trilogy, book 1) by Amanda Hocking.

At this point I've only read about half of Switched. The story is put together well and the technical/grammatical editing is actually pretty good (although not as good as what I'm used to seeing in print) but there is, IMHO, room for improvement. In fact, there are things in this book that would be called out in a Scribblerati critique session. And speaking of the Scribblerati, I’m willing to go on the record as saying that everything we are currently turning out is just as technically well written, if not better, than Switched.

So maybe the person at Diversicon who made that comment was somewhat right, at least in this case, but I think they are missing the point. Amanda Hocking may not have written the best book I've ever read, but neither was it the worst and, if you ask me, I think Amanda Hocking is brilliant. She has made a boatload of money off the Tryelle Trilogy and I don't care how you slice it, that is nothing if not brilliant.

It's also, in my opinion, not terribly surprising.

One thing I think that we writers are is perfectionists. I mean, we are artists and artists tend to be highly critical of their own work. I'm no different. We tend to look at our art and say we need to make it the absolute best it can be and while that's great, the lesson that Amanda Hocking's success is giving us is that it's not necessary to be great.

I think this is something that people in the movie and music business have known for a long time. You and I both know a lot of money has been made off less than perfect songs and movies. Similarly, Amanda Hocking is telling us that we writers don't need to write War and Peace in order to be hugely successful. We just need to write something that's “good enough.”

If you stop and think about it, this notion of “good enough,” combined with our ability to self-publish something that falls into that category, is actually quite a revelation. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not advocating a new world order where books are full of spelling errors, poor grammar, and disconnected plot threads. But maybe we writers should take a look at Amanda Hocking’s success and think about “good enough” the next time we’re staring down the face of a contract that pays a fraction of what we could earn by self-publishing.

After all, I imagine that after Amanda Hocking reads reviews that call into question the quality of her work, she laughs all the way to the bank.

--------------------------------------------------

UPDATE 8-13-2011

I like to maintain a positive attitude toward self-publishing, which can be challenging given how many people out there bagging on it. But today I am bummed out because just had a brief yet interesting twitter exchange with @jane_l regarding a HORRIBLE self-pubbed book (you can find the review here, but I don't recommend it because of the subject matter involved).

I think it's one thing to self-pub a novel with a few grammatical errors, or one that may not be as polished as it could be, but it's another thing entirely to self-pub something that's just awful.

As someone who would like to self-pub someday, that makes me mad. What is the likelihood that someone would take a chance on my self published novel after reading something as horrible as the book mentioned above?

Clearly, self-publishing, should I choose to go that route, will be challenging.

The Random Post

So whatever happened to that #Reverb10 thing you were doing?

Yep. I feel bad about letting that one slide. I really meant to go all the way to the end with that one, but then there was all of this business:

And it was a weird one too. Yes, there was all the usual family and Christmas stuff going on, but the lovely @mplstravelkitty and I had this great idea that December was a wonderful time to start remodeling our master bath. To be clear, we hired it done because I'm about as inept at remodeling as I would be flying the space shuttle, but it takes a ton of time even when someone else is doing the heavy lifting.

Do I want a nickel or chrome finish on the faucets?

Undermount sinks?

Do I think Dave's Den is the right color to paint the bathroom?

Dave’s Den??

Thankfully, the aforementioned lovely @mplstravelkitty is a whiz at navigating the bathroom supply websites and we survived.

Admission: I liked Dave's Den, but it didn't end up in the bath.

Self-mutilation

Yesterday I tried to kill one of my toes. I'm not entirely sure why kicking the side of the couch seemed like a good idea but I did and the lovely @mplstravelkitty insists it's not broken but I'm kind of a whiner and ooowwwwWWWW! Plus, I can't really do much yoga with my toe like that so – POUT!

Hey man, isn't this supposed to be a writing blog?

Well, yes, so here’s my WIP update.

I'm so frakking close to being with this draft that I'm ready to freak out!

I don't know if anyone else is this way, but when I was a kid in school, taking those standardized tests, I would get all squirmy and itchy and sweaty the closer I got to the end. Kinda like: oh my God make it stop! That's how I feel about my WIP right now. I've been on a serious push the last couple of months and I'm “this close” to done. Can't wait!! And not just because I want to be finished, but because I want to hear what the rest of The Scribblerati has to say about it. So far so good, but…

Unicorns kick ass and I don't care what anyone says

It may surprise some of you to know that unicorns are a frequent topic at the Scribblerati meetups.

It all started with people making fun of me because I have a unicorn in my WIP. It's not just that I have a unicorn, but that I have an elf princess who rides the unicorn. Now, in my defense, I am writing high fantasy, and I can't help it that fantasy has elves and unicorns, but still, I know how it looks.

I suppose I could've stayed away from the cliche, but that's really not my style. When you get right down to it, my whole book is about taking fantasy cliche, tropes, whatever you want to call it, and turning them on their head. Yes I have a unicorn, but my unicorn is kick ass. And my elf princess? Hot, of course. Okay, so I have one tiny little cliche…

But it all works and it isn't crochet.

(Um, that's cliche, voice translator, not crochet.)

You'll just have to take my word for it – for now!

PS. This is for you, Scribblerati:

#reverb10 - Action!

Hokay…

It's now been over a week since I last did one of these #reverb10 posts and that makes it official: I've fallen off the wagon.

I have good excuses though. Really! I was kind of under the weather for a few days there. Then there's the weather itself which has really blown goats and frakked my commute up good. The real killer was last Saturday's family Christmas. We hosted, which means lots and lots of prep work, but it was all good. We went non-trad this year and had Mexican Christmas. We made to slow cooked beef brisket, homemade refried beans, fresh salsa & guacamole, tortillas, and, of course, plenty of liquor. Good times!

Time to get back up on the wagon.

December 13 – Action. When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step?

This is the big one, isn't it? That was rhetorical because, of course it is! It's so easy to talk the talk, but walking the walk is another thing entirely. I'm gonna walk it good, baby! Walk what? The book. What else?

I'm not exactly sure yet how it's all going to go down, but 2011 is the year in which I'm going to start moving ahead on the publication front. I'm putting To Kill the Goddess out there one way or another. My plan is to start with the traditional old-school publishers and see what kind of response I get. Clearly, that's the easy way to go. No, easy isn’t the word I'm looking for. Safe. It's the safe way to go. We all know how that process works.

For those aren't familiar:
1.    query an agent
2.    wait
3.    pray

I think in my case there is going to be a lot of praying. I think my book kicks ass, but like this years Christmas, To Kill the Goddess is non-trad. At its core it's high fantasy, but there's also a healthy dose of suspense thriller, sci-fi, and horror. Add in the multiple point of view storyline, an adult / non-YA target audience, and a complete lack of vampires and, well, you can see how it might be a hard sell. It's going to take someone with vision and while I truly believe there are agents who have the vision to see what I'm trying to accomplish those agents still need to sell my book to an old-school publishing house that is typically more interested in the easy/safe sell than they are taking a chance on something unique.

Add all that together and I think the best I can hope for is a mid-list commitment which translates to selling my book for peanuts and if that's the case then I'm going to take the option behind door two, which is self publication.

Stay tuned to The Scribblerati and see how it goes!

#reverb10 (Shawn's #6)

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

Uh, anyone? Help?


I'm not a maker. Alvin's a Maker, not me. This is why I have to hire everything done.

The only thing I've made is the book, of course, and parts of a data warehouse, but I don't think that's what they are going for here.

Anyone make anything?

#reverb10

I bet you I know something you don't know.

Well, I didn't know it either until yesterday but I like feeling important so play along with me, eh?

So yesterday I was sitting on the couch, watching a spot of TV with the lovely @mplstravelkitty and she asked me if I'd heard about Reverb 10. I was like, what?

Actually, it's #reverb10

And what in the name of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is #reverb10? 

My synopsis: it's a big, writerish, end of the year blog thing.

This says it much better:


Go ahead. Check it out. I'll wait.

Kind of nifty, I think. Don't you? Although, I have to admit, it is kind of touchy-feely for what goes on around here. We Scribblerati are all about gritty fantasy, bad-ass angels, zombie apocalypse mayhem, redemption seeking bear-girls, sassy time travel, and the occasional rainbow farting unicorn. That's just who we are. I'm not sure that will really fit in with the majority of the #reverb10 crowd, but what the hell. Cyberspace is a big place. Certainly there is room for a Midwestern geek in along with all those mainstream bloggers, right?

So here goes.  And I'm behind, so don't expect a treatise on each one of these.

December 1 - One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

2010 word: Progress

Yeah, I know, it ain't the snazziest but it is accurate. In 2010, give or take a month or two, I have completely rewritten To Kill the Goddess and I'm closer than I ever have been to being finished. On top of that, this has been my second year of doing yoga on a regular basis. Yoga has rebuilt my body and has given me a focus I previously lacked. I am strong in body and mind and I feel like I can do anything.

2011 word: Launch

I'm going to finish To Kill the Goddess.

I'm going to launch and who knows where it will take me.

December 2 - Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

I go to my frakking day job. I'm working on it.

December 3 – Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

There's so many places I could go with this one. On the plus side: sitting on the beach in Aruba with the lovely @mplstravelkitty. On the minus side: getting canned. And, of course, countless moments in between.

But I'm going to take this one: Success!

That's the University of Minnesota Golden Gopher football team and a whole bunch of fans storming the field with Floyd of Rosedale in hand. Those of you who don't follow college football, much less the Gophers, will find it difficult to appreciate what a moment like this is like. Sure, we can all understand the excitement that comes with winning a game, but this one was special. The Gophers have had a number of horrible seasons in a row and this year they have had some absolutely dreadful losses. I'm a season ticket holder and I haven't seen them win a home game since sometime in early / mid fall of 2009.

So this moment?

My throat is raw; hoarse from screaming and yelling. My head is buzzing from the realization that we actually won a game - and from a nip or two (or ten) of Jameson. My hands are wet and cold, fumbling at my phone and trying to get the camera to snap a picture. My ears are ringing with the shouts of those around me: startled cheers, hoarse shouts, and my dad, a disgruntled Iowa fan grumbling, “Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!”

Success!

PS. there's likely to be an avalanche of these coming from me so prepare yourself!

PPS. Any of you Scribblerati want to join me? Hop on!

A Few Thoughts About Art

This is supposed to be an apolitical blog. That said, this post is going to tread dangerously close to that line.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Two weeks ago two rather stunning events occurred in my life. The first was that I received one of those anti-gay marriage DVDs Catholic Archbishop John Nienstedt has been sending out to Catholic households. The second, was that the church I belong to, the Basilica of St. Mary, fired their Artist in Residence, Lucinda Naylor. She had held that position for 15 years. I don't know Lucinda personally, but having been a member of the Basilica of St. Mary for well over a decade, I'm intimately familiar with much of her religious artwork.

Now, if this blog wasn't apolitical, the rest of what you would see on this post would be one frakking shit storm of a rant about how much I disapprove of this whole thing. But it isn't, so we'll leave it at that.

Among the many topics these events have prompted me to dwell on over the last couple weeks, has been the nature of art and what it means to be an artist.

Art, as we all know, can come in many forms. To name but a few: music, film, literature, sculpture, etc. Within all of these categories, art can range from simple fun, like an Iron Man movie or a good pop song, to something that is deep, long-lasting, and thought-provoking.

Good art, in my opinion, challenges our preconceived notions of what is right, or just, or appropriate. The best art, does that in ways that are nonthreatening; ways that make us think about a topic without being unduly provocative.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think that fiction writers are as well tuned into that notion as anyone. If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you can probably rattle off several stories (novels, novellas, TV scripts) that have surprised you with their content and stuck with you long after first reading or viewing them. If you're a writer, then you inherently know that a story cannot function without conflict and that your better stories are those that integrate that conflict into the social and/or societal issues that affect us every day.

Lucinda Naylor was fired because she wanted to take Archbishop John Nienstedt’s DVDs and form an artistic work protesting his actions. My understanding, is that her vision is to shape these DVDs into an image of the Holy Spirit moving through the church and effecting positive change.

That, my friends, is the very definition of the best art.

For more on Lucinda Naylor check out her Facebook page DVD to ART

Cruel, Cruel Authors You Must Read

In my last two blogs, I wrote about authors who have influenced my writing. Much of whatever is good in my WIP owes a great debt to these foremothers and fathers. As a newbie writer, there's still I lot I don't know about crafting a great novel, so this time around I'm writing about some folks who I need to learn a lesson from.

A while ago, Claudia wondered what it would mean for the story if my main character, Beryl, died. A (small) part of my brain can see the merits of her suggestion, but honestly, at the time I came very close to crying into my tea. (Just to be clear: we are a very congenial bunch and I can't imagine any of us ever bringing another to tears over our critiques of each other's writing.) "But I love Beryl!" my brain screamed, "I can't kill her! I would miss her! I couldn't! I couldn't possibly!"

In the Loft class out of which Scribblerati formed, Lyda Morehouse gave a graphic representation of her plots. Picture a big u-shaped curve. The protagonist starts out fine, but then bad things happen, and more bad things, and more and more and more, and with each catastrophe, the protagonist refuses to learn/change/grow/act until she or he hits the bottom of the curve. Then they start actually learning from their mistakes, or start protaging rather then passively accepting their punishment. At which point they climb gradually out of the hole. In other words, Lyda likes to beat up on her protagonist. A lot. I took the class, I listened, took notes, respected Lyda's advice, after all, she's not only a published author, she's a really good one. But even so, I clearly didn't really learn this lesson, because I still catch myself being too nice to Beryl.

A number of the books I read over the summer have helped me see more clearly how my own tendency toward not wanting to hurt, while likely a virtue in real life, is not always a virtue in fiction. The best two, and the ones I demand/suggest/plead that you all read, if you haven't yet, are as follows:

1. The Knife of Never Letting Go. Patrick Ness. I'm a slow reader. It's a pretty hefty book. I read it in two days. I never read anything in two days. It is non-stop. Lyda's u-shaped curve becomes a cliff that Todd Hewitt free falls down. Patrick N. is cruel--very cruel--to Todd, but I'm not sure I've ever rooted for a character like I rooted for Todd. Plus, the language is amazing. The talking dog? He's incredible. Please, please, read this book.

2. The Name of the Wind. Patrick Rothfuss. At this year's Wiscon, I went to a session that was facilitated by Patrick R. He was so funny and charming that I decided to read his book. Where Knife is a frakking adrenalin rush, Name is a book for savoring. It does have lots of action and suspense, but paired with an intricate storyline, and a careful, detailed telling of the wizard Kvothe's coming of age. While Todd Hewitt plummets into the ever-deepening abyss of badness, Kvothe has many good things happen along his journey. But the material benefits of each success are all very short-lived; we think that now, finally, things will work out for Kvothe, but no, the benefits keep disappearing, and more obstacles arise. It's kinder and gentler than The Knife of Never Letting Go, but Patrick R. still knows how to kick his protagonist and keep him down. I haven't done it justice here, so I'll just repeat: please, please, read this book.

Both these Patricks have mastered what I am just learning: that in order to have your readers fall in love with, care about, root for, and feel like they want to protect your main character, you have to hurt them. You can be gentle, you can be fierce, but you need to cause them pain.

It's so unlike real life, this being mean to someone so that other people will love them as much as you do. Warped.

And so I struggle.

Shawn's Awesome List of Favorite Writers

I'm the late comer to this list of favorite writers thing that's been going on here. You would think that going last would make it easier, but the truth is I'm a little intimidated by what everyone else has read. Not ashamed, not by any means, but a little intimidated. Truth is, I've never really been interested in reading the classics or the greats. Look at my bookshelves and you'll see that fantasy has dominated my repertoire. Look closer, and you'll see much of it is from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It's not that I don't like the newer stuff, but rather I've been reading fewer novels as I do more writing (and read more comics).

Let's get to it, shall we?

Here, in alphabetical order, are my top10.

Brian Michael Bendis. If you've paid attention you've seen me wax poetic about this guy before. In my opinion, Brian Michael Bendis ranks among the best of those currently writing comics. I've never tried writing a comic, but I think it would be every bit as challenging as writing a novel. It's incredibly sparse writing and it's a terribly difficult medium in which to convey emotion and character development. Brian Michael Bendis is one of the masters. If you have any doubts about that, read Powers Vol 7: Forever.

Orson Scott Card. There are only two books I’ve ever read in their entirety in one day in one day and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is one. This book blew me away when I read it in high school and it’s still one of my all time favorites.

Stephen King. I need to read more Stephen King. Outside of The Dark Tower books, I’ve only ready a few of his books but The Dark Tower series is a modern classic. Sure, the last book in the series kinda left me wanting, but really, how do you end something like that? And the rest were stunning, so he gets a bye.

Ronald D. Moore. An odd choice maybe, but this guy is a master story teller. He played a major role in production and script development for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and he was the architect of the new Battlestar Galactica, all of which are in my top TV shows list.

J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter. Need I say anything else? By the way, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the other book I read in a day.

Dan Simmons. I met Dan Simmons at a book signing at Dreamhaven - many moons ago. He was a super nice guy and someday I hope to meet him again. His books Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are not only among the best books I have ever read, but they are direct influences to my current WIP. Interesting side note: he has also written Carrion Comfort, which is a novel about vampires and was written WAY before the current vampire craze. All you vampire junkies should check it out. ;-)

J. Michael Straczynski. JMS wrote the vast majority of Bablyon 5, which is still one of my top TV shows of all time. He also writes comics, movies and novels. I read one of his novels, which was decent, but his comics are top notch. Midnight Nation is still one of my all time favorite graphic novels.

Judith Tarr. Judith Tarr is a beautiful writer. She writes a lot of historical fantasy and she has an enviable talent for bringing the past life. Almost all of her books have strong female characters, which is commonplace today, but was a bit unusual back in the early 90’s at (what I would consider) the height of her career. Her work is another direct influence to my WIP.

J. R. R. Tolkien. Here's another author who I don't need to introduce. And it should be no surprise to anyone who has read my WIP that The Lord of the Rings is another direct influence. Epic fantasy, baby. LOVE IT!

Joss Whedon. This is probably the most frivolous choice on my list, but I couldn't pass up sticking him in. And really, why not? Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity, the graphic novel Fray, And Doctor Horrible’s Sing-along Blog are all full of awesome.

Hump Day Surprise: the Metaphor Rant

So it's after 11 o'clock on a Monday evening (yes, I know this is Wednesday -- just roll with it :-) ). I need to get up in six or so hours, and I'm WIDE awake. That has a little bit to do with our Scribblerati meet up tonight and that always winds me up some, but it has a lot more to do with the chocolate mocha thingy I so wisely chose to down at 7:30 PM.

Not my brightest move ever.

So here I am, my mind spinning with all sorts of things, but mostly with the fact that sometimes I hate writing fantasy. To be honest, it's more of a love/hate, like when people talk about their cat chewing up their computer power cord, or their kids throwing a tantrum in the grocery store. Yes, I do love fantasy, just like people love their cats and their kids, but there are times when it drives me crazy, like when I would love nothing more than to use one tiny little frakking metaphor.

I suppose most fantasy writers have this problem to some degree. For instance, you can't use commonly known metaphors like, ‘an electric feel,’ because there isn't electricity in most fantasies. My situation is even worse, and it's entirely of my own making. My story takes place on a completely different world and not even a world, but a moon where even the plants are different colors than they are here on earth. So, forest green? Can't use it. Saying the air has a spring-like feel? Can't use that either.

And it gets even crazier. Take “winds me up,” for example. That's a metaphor based on watches and clocks. Clocks could potentially exist in my world, but don't, and throwing that phrase into my world would adjust ring hollow.

Ring hollow… I think I could actually use that one….

So what is it that has me worked up tonight? “Pancake like leaves.”

It just so happens that the leaves on illiana trees look like pancakes. They do. They are round, flat, a little thick. Pancakes. But can I use that? Noooooooo. Because when I do, the ever insightful Scribblerati began to ask, “Do they make pancakes in your world? And if they do, would they really call them pancakes because nothing else in your world is named the same as it is here on earth.” To which my reply is, “What if I add a scene where they go out for brunch and order pancakes and goat cheese omelettes?”

Yah, that won't work.

Sigh. So back to the drawing board.

PS. I can't use drawing board either.

So if I had to choose my own name…

Hello everyone, it's Hump Day, and you know what that means, right?

No?

You don't remember a few months back when I said I was going to make a “Hump Day Surprise” post on every Wednesday?

Well, really, who can blame you? I mean, I had the best of intentions but then craziness ensued, and then laziness followed, and I think you get the idea. So, from now on, I think I'm going to put extra emphasis on the “surprise” part and just leave you all guessing as to when I'm actually do get around to doing one of these.

Now, having said all that, onward!

I recently came to the conclusion that I need to choose a pen name. It isn't something I ever thought I would do, but an unexpected need for anonymity has conspired to make me think otherwise. No, it's not that I'm afraid that someday in the distant future some crazy fan will track me down, rather, I need to keep my work life and my writing life separate.

Now, you would think that having a day job and writing on the side wouldn't be mutually exclusive, but you would be wrong. You would also think that your coworkers would be supportive of your extracurricular endeavors in the same way that they are supportive of other people's need to spend time with their families, but you would be wrong about that as well. You may have a different experience, but I have discovered, quite unexpectedly, that having an active, social media presence unrelated to my day job can be a liability.

Hence: pen name.

And now that I'm done bitching, here's the fun part! I need to choose a pen name. Most of the ones I've thought of so far are variations on my own name and mash ups of my last name with my wife's. Here's a few:

Sean Patrick
Patrick Shawn
Sean Raelin
Patrick Raelin

And you can get a whole bunch more variations by switching Sean with Shawn and Raelin with Raelyn.

I think I have a favorite but I'm curious, what do you think?

Shame on You, Amazon.com

Up until recently, like last week, I was a huge fan of Amazon.com. I've been shopping there for years. Literally. I don't know exactly how long (well, I could figure that out if I wasn't too lazy to open Quicken) but it was back when most people were still afraid to enter their credit card number into a computer.

I am, or rather was what one could call and Amazon.com fanboy. I've bought all kinds of crazy stuff there. Everything from toothbrushes to comics, and hard drives to electric mixers. I loved most everything about Amazon.com. I loved the product reviews (which have never steered me wrong), the fact that they always had a copy of the book I wanted on their virtual shelf, and the fact that I could do all my shopping while in my pajamas, scratching my – never mind.

I fell even more in love with Amazon.com when they went toe to toe with Apple iTunes and began to sell DRM free MP3’s. I was ecstatic. I knew that Amazon.com wasn't being entirely altruistic, but it felt good to be able to buy music legitimately, and electronically, the way I wanted. And it didn't hurt that by doing so I was sticking it to the music companies that were forcing DRM done all our throats (and making a market for pirated music that hurt both themselves and the artists they presumably were acting in the best interests of).

Fast forward to this last weekend. I won't go into all the gory details, because it's been blogged about incessantly, but here's my summary in Shawn Speak. Amazon.com has somewhere around a 70% market share in the electronic book market. They were selling e-books at the unsustainable price of $9.99, taking a loss on every purchase in order to subsidize the Kindle.  (Let me point out that Amazon.com's e-books are chock full of DRM – irony anyone?).  Publishers didn't like the $9.99 price, but given the fact that Amazon.com had no real competition, there wasn't anything they could do about it.  Enter the Apple iPad. Real competition. MacMillan publishing went to Amazon.com and wanted to renegotiate the $9.99 price. Amazon.com said “frak off” and pulled all of MacMillan’s books from their store.

If I were a published author, and if I was published underneath one of MacMillan's many labels, I would be pissed as hell. Actually, I would have been pissed before that because I wouldn't want my book being distributed with DRM, but that's another story.

I'm not published, yet, but I'm still pissed. I feel betrayed. Maybe it's silly, but I always thought of Amazon.com as a “good” company. They didn't have a “don't be evil” motto like Google, but then I never saw them do anything bad either. Until now.

So shame on you, Amazon.com.

And shame on me, for thinking you were anything more than another evil megacorp.

The Perils of Being a Writer (My Own Worst Enemy)

There are many things that I hope for and wish for in this world. Among them, there are of course, the usual suspects. An end to war, hunger, discrimination, things like that. There are also many other, less lofty, hopes and wishes that I have.  Like, for instance, for the Minnesota Gophers to field a competitive (much less winning) football team in 2010, or that Steve Jobs sees the error of his ways and decides to name the new Apple tablet after something other than a feminine hygiene product. Yet, high up on any list I might decide to make would be this: that someday, inshallah, I will be able to quit my frakking day job.

Now, bear with me a moment while I explain. I have had an extraordinarily horrible last couple of weeks at work. I won't go into all the details because it would just stress me out and bore all of you to death, so let's just say it was really icky and leave it at that. I would love to be able to blame all that horribleness on work and absolve myself of any responsibility in the matter, but if I'm really honest with myself I have to admit that I'm part of the problem. More specifically, Writer M e is part of the problem.

You see -- and those of you who are writers will get this right away -- I think about things. A lot. When somebody says something, I wonder why they said it. When somebody does something, I wonder why they did it. If it stopped there, you probably wouldn't be reading this, however, I have a problem. I think about things. A lot.

A LOT.

I don't just think about things, I ruminate. I think about what happened, and then I torture myself by extrapolating on it. What if I had said this in response? Or what about that? How does so-and-so feel about my reaction to the situation? Are they mad? How mad are they? What might they do? Who might they be telling? What would I do if they told so-and-so? (Let's think about that for a while.) And, oh my God, if they did that, would it mean they think this or that?

You get the drift, my friends, and oh yeah, it's sick. I'm sick. I can't turn it off. It runs all the time. It runs when I'm in the shower. When I'm eating. When I'm at work. When I'm in the car. When I'm in yoga. When I'm at church. When I'm in the can.

It -- is -- incessant.

I suppose, if I sit back and look at all this objectively, I could put on the glass half-full spin and say this sickness of mine is really a good thing. A strength. I, Shawn Enderlin, have an overactive imagination and that overactive imagination is going to lead me to great places. I'm going to write great stories and I'm going to do great things, and some day, by the Grace of God, I'm going to be able to quit my day frakking job and spend all of my time doing what I love, writing.

Or maybe not.

Meh.

All I know, is that this overactive imagination of mine means one thing: I am, despite my best intentions, my own worst enemy.