Tagged

K.C. Shaw, author of the awesome Evil Outfitters, Ltd (among other awesome stories) and lover of lists, especially lists that have been crossed off, has tagged me. I'll respond using my work in progress

What is the title of your book? 
The Knife That Parts The Night
Where did the idea come from for the book?
The main character, a thief named Amra Thetys, has made more than a few references about her rough childhood. In this, the third book featuring her, that childhood comes back to haunt her, in some ways literally. The idea came from an article I read years and years ago about the street kids of Brazil, and their plight- which includes off-duty officers paid by local businessmen to form death squads to get rid of the petty theft problem these street kids pose. 
What genre does your book fall under?
Sword & Sorcery
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Um. Oh, my. Well, since this is Hollywood we're talking about, Amra would have to be played by Milla Jovovich. Her partner, Holgren, would be best served by Adrien Brody.
What is a one-sentence synopsis of the book?
If I could put it all into one sentence, I wouldn't need to write the book. Let's give it a try, though: When someone sends you your long-ago enemy's head in a box, really, really consider just burying it in you back garden and forgetting all about it.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I'm done with agents, querying, and traditional publishing. 
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Well, it's a work in progress, as they say. I wrote the first two exploratory chapters eight years ago, and the outline five years ago. But since I just completed another book in the series, and since sales have started to pick up a bit, I've got some momentum now.
What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?
If you like Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser or Brust's Vlad Taltos series, you might dig this.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
There were a few people who a) prodded me to take back the publishing rights for my first novel from Random House and self publish, and b) urged me to write more Amra stories. So thanks to Ann, Anthony, SarahP and Phil, the most prominent, or at  least proximate, of those. And thanks to all the readers who had nice things to say about the first two Amra stories. I hope this next one does not disappoint.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Every time someone mentions my books to their friends, a puppy and/or kitten is saved from certain doom.
I'm s'posed to tag, but you know. That thing.

I suppose it had to happen.

So I uploaded The Blade That Whispers Hate to Smashwords, to check for formatting issues (it's currently there for free in all its first draft glory). Smashwords is the only place I've uploaded it.

Imagine my surprise when I saw it was being offered at Amazon. For $1.99.

At first I was like 'whu?' and then I realized.

Some bright spark pirated it and put it up on Amazon, hoping (I suppose) to make a quick buck before they were shut down.

Dude, I'm not that popular.

Anyway, I've notified Amazon, and posted a warning review.

The first draft, it is done.

The Blade That Whispers Hate is now officially a novel, with a beginning, middle and end.

It's now gone off to the motley crew known as the beta readers, who will delight in mocking my every typo, misspelling, grammar fail and monkey-brained plot twist.

2 chapters, (about 4,000 words) to go.

How soon is now?

Well you say it's gonna happen now
But when exactly do you mean?
See I've already waited too long...

(t.A.T.u.'s version, as I prefer to look at them rather than Morrissey)

#

Regarding BWH: I don't know how soon. It's coming. It's just decided to be... slightly more than I'd plotted out.

We're getting close. Really Close.

If all goes well, the first draft will be completed this week.

Never famous, redux

I thought I'd better explain the last post a little more fully.

Quick, name three famous fantasy writers.

The three that sprang to my mind were George RR Martin, Tolkien and Terry Goodkind. Of course there are tons of others who might qualify as famous, both living and dead, bother deservedly and otherwise. The point being, for anyone who partakes of fantasy on at least a semi-regular basis, these names are familiar. All of them have had their works translated to the screen, big or small. They have entered the wider sphere, breaking out of the genre 'ghetto'.

I don't expect that will ever happen to me. And I'm fine with that.

Now quick, name three important fantasy writers.

The ones I thought of right off were Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard and Ursula Leguin. Each of them contributed something to the genre (and since Ursula is still kicking, she may well contribute more) that no one else could have. Their voices, their works, are singular, irreproducible (despite many, many attempts in Howard's case). But they aren't especially famous to the wider world in the same sense that the first three are. Sure, if you go to a Sf/F convention, virtually everyone would know who they were. But if you did a survey at your local pub? Not so much.

So what's my point? It's that I'm never going to be famous in the way that Tolkien, or Martin, or even Goodkind is. Would I like to be? Well, sure. But not enough to try and emulate them, writing-wise. I would much rather be Fritz Leiber, nearly broke and typing next to my kitchen sink in my waning years, and having a roaring good time writing what the hell I wanted to, than churning out derivative doorstoppers because that's what the market wants. Never fear. I'll tell you a secret: I've tried to write Generic Fantasy(tm) and failed miserably because I was miserable doing it. Other people can (kofDavidDalglishkof) and good for them. They've got a huge work ethic that I envy. But I come to my writing as an avocation rather than a vocation. And while I've no particular hope of impinging upon the greater cultural gestalt, I would very much like to be remembered, after I am gone, as someone who contributed something unique, or at least worthy, to the genre. it's a lesser fame, certainly, but one that is more durable and, to me at least, more worthwhile.

All this is not to say I long to die in penury. If I could have, say, the success of Glen Cook or even Steven Brust (two writers I admire greatly), I'd be a happy, happy man.

So, why was I complaining? What exactly was I complaining about then? That's not so simple. It has to do with my writing process, which while vastly interesting to me, is about as exciting as holiday photos to others. To try and explain briefly, there's an inherent tension between giving the reader what they want when they go shopping in the Epic Fantasy section, and the way that my stories tend to play out. I do feel a responsibility to deliver a close approximation to what's on the tin. Sadly, there is no "1st Person POV Sword & Sorcery That Toys With Genre Conventions" section in any bookstore I've ever visited, online or otherwise. So yes, as much as I can, as much as I feel comfortable with, I do try and put some of my more rebellious writing tics under a blanket of the familiar. Perhaps as I become a stronger writer, or as readers respond positively to what they find in my writing, I won't feel compelled to do so quite so much- but it is a compulsion, or at least a deeply ingrained worry. It doesn't have to do with wanting to be 'famous' though. It has to do with meeting readers' expectations as much as I can, within the framework of the genre.

To try and give an example: If I'm paying for a cheeseburger, and the cook is a frustrated chef, I might be quite happy if he does some amazing thing with the spices and preparation of the meat, or if he chooses to serve it on a sourdough bun, or if he uses arugula and rocket instead of iceberg lettuce. I would be less pleased if the cheese is Limburger, there are avocado and papaya slices, and the meat is cow tongue.

The point being I know I can make a burger that's properly cooked, with fresh ingredients. Nobody's going to get sick off it. The tension comes in restraining my more creative impulses, because at this point in my writing life, I feel beholden to the reader to give them a product that is within the boundaries of the genre. I simply cannot go and start messing with fundamental underpinnings such as story arc (and yes, I have had such urges). Not for Amra and Holgren's tales, at least.

Speaking of which, The Blade That Whispers Hate isn't gonna write itself.

Peace, y'all.

I am so never going to be a famous writer

I know my genre conventions. I know them inside and out, back to front, up down and sideways.

And yet I can't make myself follow them.

The crazy thing is, even though I can't make myself follow them, I go to incredible lengths to disguise the fact that I didn't follow them. Which is just sick.

What the hell is wrong with me?

(yes, I am talking about The Blade That Whispers Hate. No, I'm not going to get into specifics.)

Fantasy & Feminism, a few personal thoughts

Been thinking a lot lately about feminism, misogyny, chauvinism, and just what it is that differentiates men from women, literarily speaking. Part of this springs from writing a female point of view character, part of it from my personal life, and part from various dust ups on the internet, savaging male fantasy writers as all kinds of bad when it comes to portraying women in a realistic light.

When I first wrote Thagoth, ten years ago now, making the POV character female was not a conscious decision. I mean, I've always been contrarian to a certain degree with my writing; I would be miserable if I had to write like Salvatore or Brooks. But that book started with just an image: a thief trapped in a ruined city in a rainstorm. She was starving. Why? That's it, that's how it began. The thief was a she, and that was that.

Now I admit to naming her Amra knowing it was a name, an alias, that Conan the Barbarian had used for a time. That was both as a nod to my sword & sorcery roots and a sort of dig- my hero was a heroine, not muscular, not a sword master, but just as tough and stubborn in her way as Howard's Conan was in his. Only one or two people have ever picked up on the name, which I attribute to my awesome powers of subtlety. Or something.

Anyway, I wish I could say I have labored mightily to ensure Amra is not just a male fantasy hero with lady parts, so to speak, but the truth is I haven't labored all that much. Amra is Amra. Her history has informed her personality much more, by and large, than her gender. Poverty, domestic violence, murder, homelessness- all before her teens. In Amra's world, gender equality doesn't exist, generally speaking, except interstitially. Her fence doesn't care if she has breasts; he cares if she brings him a profit. Only the very rich and those who operate outside the law can ignore the social mores regarding gender in her world. So Amra operates generally free of much of the patriarchal nonsense other women deal with by virtue of not being fully immersed in that society.

Am I avoiding gender roles and issues by having Amra hold a special, 'other' place in a male-dominated society? Yes, in part. But I'm not avoiding it because I'm afraid to discuss or explore it. I'm avoiding it because these books are not about that, except in a very tangential way.

If you want to know the truth, I'm much more interested in exploring what poverty, privation, domestic abuse and class oppression does to those who labor under these disadvantages. Whether that person is female is a factor, of course, but as a writer I feel I have far bigger fish to fry in my small, genre way than to explore the patriarchal oppression of females.

I leave that to those who are more passionate about the subject. As for my female POV character, she is an individual with strengths and weaknesses, faults and foibles, aspirations and morals (however tarnished, however dented). That's enough for me to try and write convincingly without worrying whether some contributor to Jezebel one day accuses me of being a creep/neckbeard/man'splainer.

Smashwords update

Well.

All but one of my titles has now gone back to their regularly scheduled price at the Apple store.

I still don't know why my titles were free for 30 days. I don't know what kind of jiggery-pokery went on behind the scenes to make it happen, or to make it stop. I only know that I have never experienced such a black hole of customer 'service' in my entire life.

Until Smashwords gets its act together on the customer service side, I can only urge any writer considering self-publishing to steer clear of this company. Mistakes (and there have been many over the last year) I can take in stride. Having to wait nearly two weeks for a response to an urgent issue, and having that response be essentially useless? No. No, I can't accept that from a service provider.

Never mind that I've lost the lion's share of a month's revenue. I'm not making so much that I count on my writing income for anything. I just sock it away and forget about it. The point is, what if this happens when it does matter? What if I was making enough that I'd quit my day job and was relying on my writing income?

I'd have been well and truly screwed, that's what. And if you were in that position, so would you.

I hope you're listening, Mr. Coker. You really need to get your house in order.

Writing update: The Blade That Whispers Hate, or, how chapter 22 almost killed me*

As of this morning, the word count for BWH stands at 48,260.

The last month or so has not been as fruitful, writing-wise, as I might have hoped. Deadlines at work and real-life stress have conspired to keep me from staying on track with this book. The particular chapter that I'd become stuck on (chapter 22, for those keeping score) wasn't a terribly long one. None of the chapters in BWH are terribly long. But chapter 22 was rather involved. Getting all the characters from point A to point B was a lot more difficult, and tiresome, than I had expected.

Writing this chapter was a lot like digging a ditch. Not much in the way of inspiration, but a whole lot of perspiration. I honestly took no joy in it, which is rare for me. I'm not saying I always rise up singing to face the keyboard, but usually I find satisfaction in some portion of the work at hand, be it a turn of phrase, a nice little fillip of characterization or description, what have you.

The only satisfying thing about chapter 22 was finishing it.

But it is finished. That's the good news.

The bad news is, there are about five chapters left to write, and they're the ones (like cursed 22) that I have so far avoided because I wasn't sure exactly what happened in them, plot-wise.

Did I mention that in this book I've skipped around and wrote the bits I knew first? I didn't do that for Thagoth/Thief Who Spat. That one I had a rough and ready outline for, and knew more or less what happened in each chapter. For BWH, since I knew how it ended (yes, I have the ending written), I figured it would be easy to just write all the stuff that was clear in my mind, and that would make those dark areas in the plot more illuminated.

It hasn't turned out that way. Well I mean it has, but it hasn't been painless.

*pure hyperbole

Children of the Mandrake (Self-horn tooting likely)

...I shrugged, and stepped back off the fine woven rug that was fast soaking with blood. I said nothing. I couldn't, possessing neither tongue nor mouth. After father had made Lyssa, he’d decided children should be seen and not heard. 

Children of the Mandrake is the first publishable story I ever wrote. It's a disturbing tale that, oddly enough, sprang into my consciousness after reading a fantastic story by Sarah Prineas, author extraordinaire. (The story was From the Journals of Professor Copernicus Finch, M. S. Hex. D. in case you were interested. A fantastic story.)

As part of my 2012 self-pledge to clear the decks, I released Children as a standalone short story (It's also included in The Sorcerer's Lament.) I like the story of course, or else I would never have let it see the light of day. But I've lived with it for so long, longer than any other piece of my writing except some very dubious poetry, that I don't really see it as anything remarkable.

But it's doing well at the iBookstore. Currently free, despite my wishes, but well:


USA

New & Noteworthy #12, Horror
New & Noteworthy #3, Fantasy Short Stories

Australia

New & Noteworthy #5, Horror
New & Noteworthy #3, Fantasy Short Stories

Not bad, kids, not bad.

Waste Land is getting a sequel

For those who might be interested in such news, Marie tapped me on the shoulder on the train the other day and started telling me some stuff that happened next.

Smashwords fail. Again.

So as you may know, my short story collection 'The Sorcerer's Lament & Other Tales' had begun to get a little traction, was making some sales, was even showing up on iTunes charts in various English speaking countries.

Had been. Was. Notice the past tense there?

Here's a picture of what happened. We all like car crash pictures, right? No? Well here it is anyway:

What happened? Suddenly my book was made free at iTunes. In consequence, it dropped off the chart. A couple other of my books also went free, mysteriously, at the same time, but this is the one that hurt.

Why was my book made free at iTunes? I have no clue.

Now I suppose Apple may have screwed up (though I think it unlikely). I have to go through Smashwords to make price changes, and considering how buggy Smashwords is, Occam's razor would suggest it's Mark Coker's company that should shoulder the responsibility on this one.

But that only leads me to the next Smashwords fail - their customer support is simply unacceptably slow. The 'official' response time is 4-7 days, but then the 'official' wait for premium catalog approval was 15 days, when reality, and things like calendars, pointed to the fact that it was more like 21 days.

I put in my support request on Friday. I sincerely doubt I'll hear from them this week.

And in any case, I shouldn't have to hear from them. I updated all my books' prices on Thursday (my time), and since Smashwords supposedly now has same-day multiple metadata shipments to Apple, my prices should already have self-corrected. Another Smashwords fail.

So what should I do? Go straight to Apple? Well, there are two problems with that. First, Smashwords tells you NOT to contact the vendor directly (though I had to with Barnes & Noble once as Smashwords support staff didn't even understand my problem once they finally got around to answering my request - yet another Smashwords fail). Second problem, Apple only talks to the distributor.

So let's recap:

• I give Smashwords 10% of my slowly but steadily growing writing income, and in return they distribute my ebooks to two online stores that matter (Apple and B&N), one that might at some point matter (Kobo), and a bunch that don't and won't matter to any individual author (Sony, Diesel, Axis 360, Blio, page Foundry) but not the one that matters most (Amazon) until I earn $1,000 to make it worth their while.

• There are consistent problems, mistakes and other issues that range from annoying to infuriating.
• The response time in dealing with said problems has been unacceptably slow for the last year.
• With a little upfront hassle and a small investment, I can distribute myself to the stores that matter (Apple, B&N and Kobo), save 10%, and not have to wait days to deal with problems that might arise, or at least be talking directly to the source of the problem without having to go through a middleman who may or may not know what the hell I am talking about.

 Here, ultimately, is the problem with Smashwords: they are a distribution company that, frankly, isn't very good at their core service: distributing what amounts to data. An ebook is, at its heart, a very long string of 1s and 0s. The metadata attached to that ebook is a series of much shorter strings of 1s and 0s. Communication of 1s and 0s in today's world is, practically speaking, instantaneous.

And yet Smashwords has, time and again in my particular case, not been able to deliver in a timely fashion, not been able to update in a timely fashion, not been able to respond to issues in a timely fashion or reply positively to some pretty basic requests. And I know I'm not alone.

So every cent of my writing income will now go to getting incorporated here in Singapore and distributing directly to online retailers, bypassing Smashwords entirely and saving myself 10% and chronic heartburn in the process.

You had me for a year, Mark. I wanted to be happy with you and your company. But you just made it too hard to do so, too many times.

Tired

Please note this is a whiny post, probably better skipped.

I'm tired, creatively. Everything I write, everything I have written, seems limp and lifeless. I've been here before, I know it will pass. That doesn't help right now.

I don't know if it is cause or effect, but I look at what's going on in the self-publishing scene and I feel deeply underwhelmed. From the current top dog, E.L. James and her Fifty Shades of Trite right on down to the relentless self-promotion of all the indie authors on my twitter stream, I just want to stand up on a table and say 'Stop. Right now, just stop. Cap your pen, close your laptop. Take a deep breath. Now ask yourself honestly, are you writing the best possible thing you can? Forget about 'you must have an editor/cover artist/facebook page/mystical understanding of Amazon alogorithms/four books a year' and tell me the truth. That piece of writing in front of you: do you believe there's even a chance that people will still be reading and enjoying it after you pass away? Do you believe that abandoning it right now would be like suffering a miscarriage? Or is your work in progress, honestly, more akin to literary Doritos?

How much time have you spent on craft? How much time have you spent on marketing?

Tell me why I should buy and read your book. Tell me why I should invest what little time I have immersing myself in your creation. Make me believe in your make-believe. For fuck's sake, don't try and sell me; try and convince me. Because I want to be convinced, Mr/Ms/Mrs self-published author, I truly do. But if your best argument is that it's free/99 cents this weekend only, well, that's some pretty weak tea. I've got a shelf full of books I can revisit for free, and it will be like seeing old friends again that I know I will have a great time with.

Right now, your 99 cent book looks an awful lot like spending hours with a time share salesman.

Aesop's royalty statement*

Couple things: I've been reading, literally, hundreds of fables this week (work related, don't ask).  Now even less fond of ants.**

Also, I rec'd my final royalty statement (and payment) from Random House. So there's a page I can turn. How much did Thagoth earn me over its lifetime, you ask? US$580.14 in 9 years. 678 copies sold, 211 of which were in the last year.

I don't think it will take 9 years to sell 678 copies of the revised Thagoth. I also don't think it will take 9 years for me to make $580 from it, either. For me, self-publishing for all its problems is a better path than the one I was on.

Also, I should mention that The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye is currently on sale for 99 cents at Amazon (US). So, you know, if you objectively would have no problem buying me a cup of coffee in return for me telling you a story, you could buy it instead. Objective reviews are also welcome.

*Not really. But it sounded cool, so I went with it.

**Seriously, In one fable ants were greedy humans who Jupiter turned into ants for their wicked ways. In another, they are all holier than thou on the grasshopper who just wanted to get his groove on during the summer, and let him starve. I bet they were just waiting for the grasshopper to die so they could eat him, too. What's the moral of that story? 'Ants suck ass.'

Four-fold, $500, and undisclosed retirement locations

The first quarter I sent my writing out into the world as a self-publisher, I earned zero dollars. $0.00.

This did not disturb me, since all my offerings were free, and people rarely chase you down and force you to take money from them.

The second quarter, I added a couple non-free titles. I netted $15.50 (USD).

This does not mean that I only sold that many books. Due to the vagaries of the accounting departments at the various ebook retailers and the distributor I use (Smashwords), I realized it was virtually impossible to tidily put sales into a real-time quarterly perspective (not, at least, until months afterwards) and so I determined to just go by the quarterly statements I am given and not obsess over who bought what when and from where.

The third quarter, just past, saw me earn $63.52.

For those keeping track at home, that's almost exactly a four-fold increase. If my sales increase four-fold every quarter, then this next quarter I can expect about $254.

So far in this, my fourth indie quarter, I'm up to $119 (give or take, exchange rates being what they are), and still have two months to go. And as I've just released a few more titles into the wild, with more to come, I don't see meeting my four-fold target as much of an issue, this quarter at least.

Of course, after that, it all gets a little more dubious. If the four-fold increases held up, I'd be writing this blog from my (undisclosed location) early retirement home in less than 2 years. Somehow I don't see that happening.

So what are some realistic sales targets? I've already talked about The Minimum, the idea of making minimum wage as an indie writer, and what it would take. That's one. But there's another, more easily attained goal, that I like to think of as 'the break point'. Half of the self-published crowd never make more than $500 in their careers, apparently. If you can earn more than $500 with your writing, you're literally more financially successful than half the independent writers out there.

Now, this idea is chock full of problems and issues. Many people don't write for money. Many more haven't earned their $500 yet, but with infinite shelf space and forever to find an audience, this arbitrary $500 mark doesn't actually mean much at all. It's just a snapshot, and not nearly the reality check I believe the writer intended it to be. But it's a goal, arbitrary or otherwise. If you  add in my royalties from Random House, I've already passed it, of course- but I don't count Random House, just as I don't bother to count the pittance I have so far earned from Amazon.

Okay, I had to check Amazon. $38.26 from March, 2011 through June, 2012. This doesn't count sales of Thagoth, though, as Random House did the collection for that one (and still hasn't sent me the last royalty statement).

So. Yes. A rambly lunchtime blog post to, I suspect, clarify my own thinking more than inform/amuse you, Dear Reader. Sorry about that.

What to take away from all this? I'm really, really hoping that sales continue to increase four-fold. If they do, I promise I will invite you to my early retirement bash in 2014.

This is my horn. hear me toot it.

"The Sorcerer's Lament and Other Tales has appeared on the charts 235 times. It has appeared on charts in Australia, Canada, UK, USA. It has appeared on the Horror genre charts."


-Bookchart.info

Language lesson

"I don't like people much," I said. "I'm what they call a misanthrope."

A slick, self-satisfied grin crawled across his face. "Mis-an-thrope. That's a big word for such a little girl."

I rolled my eyes and did that trick where my knife is suddenly poking up someone's nostril.

"Misanthrope. It means 'piss off right now' in Lucernan."

He did.

Why I self-publish, in one tweet

"I think some people were taken aback that I say no to most things. I get hundreds of queries a week. I take on maybe 5 new projects a year." -Jennifer Laughran, @literaticat


Seriously. Jennifer is a lovely person, but bloody hell, life's too damned uncertain and short to be on that sort of submissions merry-go-round for months/years/ever.

Work in progress, er, progress + daily writing sample

So this evening I busted out 1500 words. Monday morning I squeezed out another 600. As my son would say, 'sockamooie!'

And here is the promised daily writing sample (remember, this is not polished stuff):

###

There was a pile of heads. Some were still blinking. One of them was wearing my face.

“Right then,” I said. “Let’s go back out and try to enter the Elamner’s room through the window. Dealing with Bosch can wait.”

More strenuous agreement from behind me. I was becoming popular with the mercenaries.

Holgren smiled, which, considering what we were surrounded with, made me like him more, oddly. “We can try,” he said. “Lord Osskil?”

Osskil was staring at a rotting arm that dragged itself toward his boot, a look of sick fascination on his heavy face. Very deliberately he raised his foot and stomped down on the black, split-nailed fingers that inched it forward. He kept stomping until the bones were shattered and the thing just lay there, quivering.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Let’s.”

Twice more, with feeling

I forgot to mention I've got a couple new stories up. One is currently free, and may remain so for quite some time. Or, you know, not. The other is 99 cents.

"The first time they made love – the first time he had ever made love, though not her – it was in his Malibu, on a frost-rimed night in early spring. The act itself was accomplished with a gentle urgency and a seemingly unending need." 

A story of love, loss, pain and time travel. Mature themes. Free indefinitely.  Smashwords Link

Send-up (noun): A humorous parody. 

P'uy (noun): A vicious alien race with too many legs and teeth and not enough heads. 

Varger: (noun): An alien species bearing a striking resemblance to pink jello. 

Subaltern Flint (noun): A very junior officer who never meant to start anything... 

On Harbin IV, it's better to be lucky than good. 

99 measly cents. Smashwords Link

The Blade That Whispers Hate: update

So the cemetery scene in The Blade That Whispers Hate is done. I know you've been waiting for me to kick that one in the pants, Dear Readers, so you can go to sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that pants were kicked.

What's left to do on BWH before I can say the first draft is done, you ask? Well, there's the part that I can't tell you about because it will spoil the ending, but it involves a package. So we can call that the 'package delivery' scene if you like. That or, you know, George or something. Then there are two showdowns (Grand and Petite) and another spoiler scene that I like to think of as 'Why'd you go and do THAT?!' and a breaking and entering scene. So yeah, if my fingers are correct, that's five scenes, plus some connective tissue here and there that doesn't get its own name in My Own Brain(TM) because it's just A to B stuff.

Yes, yes, Michael, I hear you say. All well and good. But  when will it be done?

Well, let's say there's about 10 left to write, give or take. Could be a bit less, could be considerably more, but call it 10k. Then let's say I can bang out 500 words a day. That would be 20 days, once I take off my shoes and include my toes.

Of course, some days I can get out 2000 words. Or more.

Of course, many other days I get exactly squat written.

But let's say 20 days, because I'm told I need a more optimistic disposition.

Meanwhile, here's another little excerpt to tide you over:

***

In a place like the Cock’s Spur, they don’t even bother putting out chairs or benches that don’t face the door. Nobody wants their back to any trouble that enters. As I walked in, a couple dozen pairs of eyes skewered me. Well, except for the one hairy brute that had lost a beady, pig-like peeper somewhere, and in the not-too distant past, judging from the puss weeping out of the socket. He really should have considered an eye patch; if not for himself, then at least for anyone forced to look at him.

After a heartbeat, all the eyes slid right off me onto Holgren, which gave me faith in the fetish he’d given me. Or maybe it was the quality of his clothes. I heard Holgren sniff behind me.

“What’s that smell?” he murmured.

“I think they’re brewing ale.”

“Oh. I thought it was cat urine. Is it supposed to smell that way?”

“Maybe the house recipe calls for cat piss.” I’d heard of stranger ingredients, if not less disgusting. Bludgeoned roosters and the like. There was a reason I generally stuck to wine.

“I find myself appallingly unthirsty,” said Holgren.

“Come on, let’s brace the bartender.”

“About the ingredients?”

“About the owner.”

         “Good idea. Take your complaint to the top, I always say.” 

Dear My Own Brain

Dear My Own Brain,

As a self-published writer who hopes one day to make a living from his writing, I find myself with the unenviable task of having to get you to believe two very nearly contradictory things at the same time:

• Sales don't matter. Only the work at hand matters.
• In order to reach my goals, I need to think not only 'artistically' but in business terms.

Now look: I know you can't think both ways at once. Last time I tried, you gave me a migraine. So you'll have to switch back and forth. At the moment you seem to be stuck on the business end of things. I blame it on reading Joe Konrath's blog, so no more of that for at least a week. The comments there suck you in, and you want to compose scintillating arguments rather that scintillating prose.

The unanswerable question that you can't seem to leave alone at the moment is 'when/how do I reach the tipping point?' By tipping point of course you mean the level of sales that generate more sales simply because of the sales already being generated. It's a chicken & egg thing, Brain. The answer is unknowable until it happens.

The single biggest thing a writer can do to boost sales is to release more great titles. This has been proven over and over. Part of it has to do with algorithms at the various retailers, Brain, and part because if someone likes what the read of yours, odds are they'll go looking for more stuff of yours. But there are a whole host of other factors that play in as well. Genre. Price. Cover image. Blurb. You know this. Why are you obsessing? Just. Stop.

You've got half a dozen stories that need some forward motion. Go obsess over them. 

The minimum

Minimum wage (where I grew up): US $7.25/hr. This works out to US $1,242.85 per month.

How much I make on each 99 cent story (after retailer & distributor cuts): 56 cents*.

How much I make on each $1.99 title: $1.19*

How much I make on each $2.99 title: $1.80*

How much I make on each $3.99 title: $2.40*

To make minimum wage as a writer, I need to sell monthly:

2219 short stories at 99 cents (74/day), or

1044 titles at $1.99 (35/day), or

690 titles at $2.99 (23/day), or

517 titles at $3.99 (17/day).

So yeah. Let you know when I hit that target.

*via Smashwords. Amazon's royalty structure is different. I don't sell much at Amazon, though, so meh.

Why I made Waste Land free. Forever

I was twelve. That summer we stayed with my uncle and aunt in Pensacola, not really welcome. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go. My aunt and uncle went off to work each day, seven days a week, to the kennel they owned, and my mom did whatever it was she did. Mostly sat in the guest bedroom reading mystery novels, from what I remember.

Which sort of left me at loose ends.

Now this could have ended very badly, but my uncle had a big, big bookshelf. And on that bookshelf were something like fifteen of the 'Year's Best SF' annuals.

And everything changed.

Each one of those stories changed the way I viewed the world, my world, in ways I had no words for. In ways I didn't even realize, and didn't show up for years, decades, some of them.

I read them all. Then I read them again.

I think, because I read them so young, I got it into my head that I could never write anything even close. At the time of course I couldn't. But I doubt I had to wait until I was forty to try. So when I started to write, I wrote fantasy. Fantasy is safe. I enjoy it. Sci fi, the sci fi I read that summer, the sci fi that became the definition of sci fi for me (Tiptree, Ellison, to give you an idea) was some far out, uncomfortable, existentially scary shit. The fact that it was painfully beautiful, stunning really- that only made it the more out of reach.

It was the world of literally. anything.

And so I shrank away from that place, the place where the horizon wasn't just limitless, but in truth debatable at best.

Then I wrote Waste Land. I would not say it belongs in one of those year's best anthologies, but I am proud of it. I also know that for some readers the ending is like a kick in the gut. It's not spelled out. It's still linear, but there are a few bars where you have to sort of hum the tune to yourself. Or make it up.

And so when I got the one star review for Waste Land that said 'didn't understand anything' I got where the reviewer was coming from. He'd wandered into a story- that story- utterly unprepared, with no real ability to 'get it'.

There's a reason Waste Land is free, and will always be free. I don't want anybody to pay for something that has the potential to mess with them.

On being an indie writer: a few thoughts

• I use the phrases 'indie' and 'self-published' interchangeably. If this puts anyone's knickers in a twist, I suggest they seek a remedy to alleviate their pedanticism.
• I write the best stuff I am capable of. That is my main goal. My main goal is not to get rich off my writing, though that certainly would be nice.
• I believe the ratio of time spent honing my craft to the time spent marketing should be on the order of 10:1
• Which is good, because marketing an indie book is, by and large, a stupid, pointless time sink. You'd get similar results just cold-calling random people.
• The most evil, the most pernicious trap an indie writer can fall into these days is constantly checking sales and rankings. Don't watch the pot boil. Go read a book if you're not going to write.
• The single best way to generate sales is to write and publish more good work. Go do it.
• I respect my readers, and give them value for money. In this way I can have a reasonable assurance that my readers will become repeat readers, and may even tell others about my writing.
• Some readers will not like my writing. It's inevitable. Which is why I give some stuff away for free, so they don't lose out monetarily.
• Some readers will leave bad reviews. That's their right. As long as the reviews aren't personal attacks, I welcome their feedback and try to learn from it, if there is anything to learn. Bad reviews are far, far better than no reviews at all. You can't be in pain if you're dead.
• I'm getting just a touch annoyed with other indie writers who get so involved with the business end of things that they forget about craft. If your book isn't the best you can possibly make it, what the hell are you doing marketing it? 
• I've gotten the royalty checks from Random House in the mail. I like the PayPal deposits from Smashwords better.

Seconded

 “If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”

― Stephen King:

just click.

Not a Rick roll.

Update

A sunny Sunday afternoon, waiting for my son. Not much to say, friends, except I'm still alive. On the writing front, things have slowed while I chew over a few plot points. I've got a funeral to write next, in a most unusual cemetery. Cheers.

To write, to have written

"But even if I'm completely misunderstood, so what?  Being true to the meaning, cognizant of the endeavor, is what matters." -Ana Scott Graham

Sometimes lately I need reminding of that. My task is not to get rich writing, or to write for the greatest number of people. My task is to write the best stuff I can. I need to be cognizant of the endeavor.

Whether the reader understands, really doesn't understand (unable? unwilling?), or misunderstands is not under my control.

Yes, I've been obsessing over reviews and sales. Yes, I need to get back to work. These pesky little misunderstood stories don't write themselves.

Final cover art for 'Blood Tempered'

Insomnia comes in many flavors

...and I call this flavor 'I ain't no farmer and didn't hear any rooster crow, but here I am up before the sun'.

It's a working title.

Anyway, just to update you on the happenings:

• I busted the second-last toe of my left foot and have been hobbling around for a week. The bruise has spread halfway up my foot, all mauve and sickly green. Pictures not forthcoming.
• Had yet another idea for a novel. Think Pearl S. Buck's Dragon Seed meets Glen Cook's Black Company series. Two great tastes that taste great together. In my head, at least.
• But that will have to wait because, as you may have noticed, I put a new banner up on this here blog. I have too many works in progress, and they've been progressing far too slowly for far too long. So I've given myself a public deadline for the three I want to complete first.
• Which means I'm going to have to produce outlines. Shudder.
• It's Father's Day tomorrow. If you know a father, why not tell him thanks for doing his fatherly stuff? Also a hug would not go amiss.

Finally

The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye is now available at all the major retailers!

Apple
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

It's been a long time coming. I'm happy to send it out into the world, and focus on the next thing.

Playing around with paint.net

This one's nearly finished, so I've been playing around with cover ideas.I do wish I could afford more professional covers, but I know mine aren't awful. I've seen awful. Mine are just 'meh'.

The Fantasy subgenres: some thoughts

• Arguably the first s&s story was written by Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan). "The Shadow Kingdom" was published in Weird Tales in 1929.
• The phrase "Sword & Sorcery" was coined by Fritz Leiber in 1961
• Joe McCullough argues that what sets apart a s&s story from other fantasy are three qualities of the main character: self-motivated, outsiders, of heroic stature.
• I'd quibble with Joe's nomenclature a bit, but by and large agree. S&S protagonists by and large choose adventure, rather than have it thrust on them. They do not, by and large, have a defined, accepted and acceptable place in the cultures of their milleux, (barbarian, thief, what have you). And if by 'heroic stature' Joe means they have some skill or ability that makes them extraordinary, then I agree to that one for the most part as well.
• But. Always a but. There are exceptions. There are always exceptions. Jirel of Joiry could not be considered an outsider, despite being a female feudal lord in an ersatz medieval France, as her vassals accept her rule without question. Few would argue that Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, especially Cugel's Saga, were not Sword & Sorcery, though the setting is technically a future Earth rather than an alternate one. But Cugel is a character that refuses to be pigeon-holed. He is self-motivated in the sense that Joe means; Cugel has absolutely no interest in subscribing to the mores of whatever society he finds himself in, unless subscribing offers him some material benefit. Cugel is definitely an outsider, no matter where he finds himself. But Cugel's only extraordinary ability, or rather abilities, are 1. an inability to learn from his mistakes or alter his behavior to minimize conflict, and 2. a sheer, stupid, bloody-minded tenacity.
• Sword & Sorcery is not High Fantasy, though it can be Epic Fantasy or the more recent 'Gritty Fantasy' (or as I prefer to call it, 'Low Fantasy' but not as an aspersion, just to highlight the fact that it is consciously tying to counter some specific conventions of High Fantasy) . 
• I would break it down this way: In all these categories, the 'fate of the world' may (or is it 'might') be at stake; but in High Fantasy, generally speaking it must be at stake as a genre convention. Or so the subgenre have evolved. High Fantasy, a la Lord of the Rings. 'Nuff said.
• Low Fantasy can mix and match from any of the other genres, except when it comes to tone. The tone is generally more akin to Chandler than Tolkien. This is fantasy with the voice of a meat packer rather than an Oxford don. This is fantasy a la Joe Abercrombie. There are no Tom Bombadils traipsing around, singing songs. There is, however, torture, rape, and unflinching delving into the not nice parts of being human. Look at The Heroes. It's a big bastard of a book about, what, a three day battle that nobody essentially wins and is pretty much a pointless waste of lives. It's good stuff, seriously, but it can't help but be what it is: an allergic reaction to High Fantasy. 
• Epic Fantasy, I would argue, tends to straddle a midpoint between high and low. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and Jordan's Wheel of Time are the most celebrated examples of the subgenre, though they are very different series. Martin writes very little in the way of magic. It's there, but it's a tiny portion of the whole, and frankly much less important than other themes; themes he tends to share with the Low Fantasy genre. The fate of the world isn't really in question, rather the fate of individuals, families, and ultimately nations. There are no prophesies; every character has agency or not according to their own personality. The Wheel of Time by contrast is absolutely stuffed with magic and the fate of the world does hang in the balance in every book. Prophecies abound. Characters struggle fruitlessly to escape their destinies.
• So why isn't Martin's Song Low Fantasy? And why isn't Jordan's Wheel High Fantasy? Because I say so. 
• No, it's because Martin writes primarily to illuminate rather than to shock. Also because Song has more DNA from Shakespeare's historical plays than it does from Tolkien or Smith et. al. It wasn't written as a response to the perceived weaknesses or failings of High Fantasy, even subconsciously. So it is free to roam the very wide bounds of the Epic subgenre.
• Jordan, despite his dyed in the wool High Fantasy tropes, still wrote with the same sort of vitality he honed when writing the Conan books (yes, he wrote Conan Sword & Sorcery books long after Howard died.) He build a towering edifice of High Fantasy, but he built it on a Sword & Sorcery foundation. Matrim Cauthon could not exist in a Tolkien novel. In the end, High Fantasy has a very specific formula, and that formula calls for certain ingredients and forbids others. Just because you have a farmboy fulfilling a prophesy and a Dark Lord bent on utter domination, that doesn't automatically get you into the club.
• And what about my lovely Sword & Sorcery? What are its hallmarks? Beyond the protagonist's requirements, there's blessed brevity. S&S is a natural fit for short stories, not series. If there is a series, it's the characters, not the plot, that continue on through multiple books. The focus tends to be on action more than character development, though this doesn not mean that characters are cardboard. Generally speaking the writing is much, much tighter.

Insomnia, I have made you at least mildly useful.

What I want most

What I want most for my writing (want as in desire, and want as in lack; for, not from, my writing) is a few hours, or much better it be days, and barely conceivable, weeks or months wherein I can write, and concentrate on the writing. To write, and not worry about the hour, how short or long. To write without the interruption of a text message, or an email, or a phone call from the little black slab in my pocket that, for various reasons, I don't really get to turn off. I don't get to be that selfish, and if I tried, guilt/worry would drive me to switch it on again, and if I gritted my teeth and kept it off, I would get no work done anyway, and if I did manage to get work done there would be no joy in it.

But forget the phone. Just a few days or weeks where I did not have to hunch my shoulders, waiting for the next emotionally draining episode of my private life to arrive, would work wonders. If I knew that, say, all the various aspects of my emotional life would remain stable until Thursday next, I could concentrate. I could focus. I could get some shit done.

By request

My son has requested I write books like the Beast Quest series, but instead of a setting called Avantia, it should be called Nexis. Monsters are tomkeep showing up through a magic portal or gate, and they must be defeated by a boy named Bly. So we'll just add that to the pile of projects...

Fact: I am outselling Stephenie Meyer and Amanda Hocking*

Heh. That got your attention. Here are all the catches/provisos/whatever:

• As far as I know, it's just the Canadian iTunes store
• It's the children's fiction category
• It's not all of my books vs all of theirs. Twilight is still selling better than my title, but Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, My Blood Approves, Virtue et al are not.
• My book is 99 cents. The cheapest of theirs is $2.99
• I don't expect it to last the day.

Le proof:

Oh, CA-nuh-DAH...

I like you, so I'm giving you something for free

Two somethings, actually, made by my very own self especially for you. Because I love you, that's why.

At long last, the book formerly known as THAGOTH and now known as The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye is available (I may have mentioned this before). I've done yet another round of edits (That would make five) and caught a bunch more typos. I'm sure you eagle-eyed (and handsome/beautiful - did I mention the handsome/beautiful part?) readers will catch more. Which is good. as long as you tell me about them, so I can fix them.

Free is here (for a month, no less): The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Coupon code WZ67V)

Also, did you know I have a short story collection? it's true. And, oh, it's a grim but delicious grab bag of horror, fantasy and sci fi.

Free is here (also for a month- never doubt my affection): The Sorcerer's Lament & Other Tales (Coupon code RK93Y)

But what can you do for me, you ask? Oh, no. See me shyly demur. See me act coy. Oh, well, if you insist, you could leave a nice (but honest!) rating, and if you had the time in your busy schedule, you might consider leaving a review alluding to my genius and/or stunning good looks. You could do that on Smashwords, or eve better, you could do it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Sony or Diesel or Kobo or even the iBookstore if you are Apple inclined. Here are a few links:

The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Amazon)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Amazon)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Barnes & Noble)
The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Diesel)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Diesel)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Sony)
The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye (Kobo)
The Sorcerer's Lament (Kobo)
The Sorcerer's Lament (iTunes)

Hugs and noogies,

me

Insomnia

I has it. I also have a developing cough and chunky phlegm. Just what you wanted to know, I'm sure. Like, eight hours ago I was feeling dandy. Now? Blech.

I realized the other day that this blog makes it sound as though all my time is taken up with my writing. I mean, I know this here blog has come to focus on my writing, because I intentionally retooled it to do so, but I do miss yabbering about other things, sometimes. But I don't like to talk about my day job, and really I'm a pretty private person. Which leaves the inane. "Tuna sandwich today. They put cucumber in it. I hate cucumber."

Meh.

Now I'm gonna chug some cough medicine and pretend I'm asleep.

Updatiness

Hullo all, Just so you know, The Blade That Whispers Hate is coming along, but it might be delayed just a smidge. Another title of mine that recently went live at the apple store is doing well enough that it's in my best interest to get another in the series out the door toot sweet. No, it's not fantasy. It's a kids' book for kids just starting to read. While I'm more than happy to see a few sales (at long last), I also feel a bit like a chef who comes home and has to cook dinner (teaching young kids is my day job). I have to admit, though, getting to write and have people buy stories like 'Hen Has Gas' is pretty sweet. In other news, at Barnes & Noble all my ebooks combined have been downloaded 1301 times since the start of the year. Not bad. If I only had a nickel...

Signs of progress

A small thing, but tonight I crossed the 40,000 word mark on 'The Blade That Whispers Hate'. This means I'm more than halfway home Amra & Holgren books seem to weigh in between 70-80k words. Partially because this is the first person narrative of a character who is rather terse, and partially because it's lean, mean sword & sorcery, not door stopper high fantasy. Since the way I write is an ungainly cross between planning and seat of my pants, it means that I do a lot of editing and polishing as I go. I constantly go back and mess with things. While it means it can take a really, really long time to get a first draft finished, it also means that the story doesn't have to be torn apart when I do finish the first draft. All that's really left is finding typos and ungainly prose, not completely reworking entire sections of the novel. Well, not usually. Anyway, progress. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Smashwords unhappiness

Smashwords is the leading independent ebook distributor, in case you weren't aware. Everything I've released independently, barring those titles on Amazon, have been through Smashwords.

That may be changing soon.

Smashwords has gotten a lot of things right, and by availing myself of their services, I've been able to reach a heck of a lot of readers. but Smashwords has also gotten a fair bit wrong, the worst of which is how they respond to their customers' problems and complaints.

1) From the want ad they placed on craigslist:

"-Ability to maintain positive, helpful attitude, even if client is angry, irrational or misguided "

2) From the Smashwords facebook page (go ahead and watch the whole thing- it's funny, but it's also indicative of how Smashwords views the torrent of customer service queries that comes in. Basically we're impatient and spoiled, and should be grateful that their service exists.)

3) Another from the Smashwords facebook page. Subtext? If your book isn't showing up at the Apple store, it's probably your fault, dummy. When an author had the temerity to question this, they were basically told that their problem only affected five authors. The tone was pretty passive-agressive:

At the moment only ~5 people have this problem out of the ~13,000 on this FB Page

Does Smashwords have angry, irrational and misguided customers? I'm sure they do. I was in retail a long time. Every business does. Have some authors not followed the guidelines, and has this delayed Apple making their title available? I'm sure they have, even though ostensibly once your book has been approved for 'premium' status, that should be the end of it. But the cake-taker is the utterly unhelpful response on their facebook page. If only five people have the specific problem that that author had, that problem should be fixed already. If Smashwords feels the need to remind everyone to read up on what Apple requires, that means a lot of authors are having problems with getting in to the Apple store. I know I am.

And the thing is, all of this would be categorized under 'shrug' if Smashwords had a responsive customer service desk. They don't. As it stands, you have to wait days, sometimes over a week, to get a response that as often as not amounts to 'Sorry dude, can't help you.'

If Smashwords were the only viable way to get ebooks out the door and into retail sites, I'd just grit my teeth. But they aren't. Sure, the alternative is annoying and paperwork-filled, which is why I let Smashwords take a cut of my earnings. But they are shut out of Amazon, the single-largest ebook seller in the world. If they can't manage to get my books into the Apple store either, then their usefulness is limited to Barnes & Noble and all the 'also rans' like Kobo and Sony. Which means their usefulness does not outweigh their annoyance factor.

If the would-be emperor is wearing something, shall we say, scanty, he shouldn't be commenting on my fashion sense, even in a veiled, passive-agressive way.

Excerpt from 'The Blade That Whispers Hate'

"Have you ever hated- really hated, with every fiber of your being? True hate is a powerful thing. It can give you the strength of will to do things you never would have considered. Things you never would have believed yourself capable of. Unthinkable things. Awful and magnificent things. Hate is a powerful force because it lends an impossible strength. With enough hate, you could rule the world. Or end it."

"Is that what you want to do?" I asked him. "Destroy the word?"

He laughed. "I don't give a runny shit about the world, or anyone or anything in it."

"Then by all the dead gods, what do you want?"

He sat down on a cracked headstone across from me and leaned down with his arms on his knees. He looked tired.

"How old do you think I am?"

"Forty? Maybe forty-five?"

"I'm seventeen hundred years old. I saw the fall of Thagoth, and of Hluria. I was ancient when Havak Silversword was imprisoned behind the Wall. You people are mayflies to me."

"You're tired of life."

"You haven't the least idea. It's much worse than it sounds. Because of the curse laid on me, every moment that passes feels like a hundred. Listening to you talk bores me to tears. Listening to me talk bores me to tears. I've experienced this conversation as though it's lasted all fucking day."

"I'll try and talk faster," I said, but he waved it away.

"Don't bother. You can't speak quickly enough to make the least difference."

"So what do you want, Heirus?"

Suddenly he was in my face. I never saw him move.

"I want the Goddess's gods-damned Blade, you stupid cow!"

"Call me a cow again and I'll stick the Blade so far up your--"

I never saw the fist, either.

Works in Progress (Fantasy)

Time to take stock of what I need to finish. Until these are done, no new (fantasy) stories for me!

First up is The Blade That Whispers Hate. This is the prequel to The Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye. It's sword & sorcery, of course, but it's also something of a murder mystery.

Then there's the sequel to 'Thief Who Spat' which is called The Knife That Parts The Night. That one is about, well, let's just say when you think everything is done and dusted, that's when life tends to punch you in the face.

And completely away from Amra and Holgren's various troubles, I've been working on a... complex epic fantasy that probably has more in common, DNA-wise, with Rashomon and Philip K. Dick than Tolkien or Jordan. This one has taken years, and may take years more. It comes along at its own pace.

And I'm also working on a fantasy novella series (The Sword-monk). Three are planned: Blood-Tempered, Weaving Steel and Kissing the Blade. They also come along at their own pace.

So yeah, that's what's on my plate for the foreseeable future. Of course plans change. Sometimes I get stuck, or get enthusiastic about a new project. But I need and want to finish these. As always it's a question of time, discipline, and life poking its nose in, demanding attention.

The end.

The saga of Thagoth is finished, Dear Readers. Amazon has pulled it. Barnes & Noble has pulled it. Ditto Sony and Diesel.  It's still available at the iBookstore and at Kobo, but should be disappearing from these venues in the next few days.

Finally.

Nobody say Thagoth to me ever again, ok? Now it's 'The Thief who Spat in Luck's Good Eye', it's been revised,  and it's available, currently over at Smashwords and at Amazon, but soon to all the other places I mentioned.

For those interested in finding all the typos I surely missed despite going over the entire manuscript three godawful times (I'm not bitter), you can go on over to Smashwords and use this handy dandy coupon code to get 'TWS' for free: HH43V. It's good until the 22nd of this month, so get to downloading. And, you know, mocking.

Grumpy

I noticed that I have recently entered a grumpy phase. Please take all words with a grain of salt until further notice. (I suspect said grumpy phase will pass once I've finished the edits on the novel formerly known as Thagoth.)

And now, as a sort of grumpy cleanser for any who have been adversely affected, this:

The worst thing

Did I ever tell you my biggest fear, writing-wise? It's not getting raked over the coals in a bad review. It's not getting undeserved praise in a good one. It's not even sitting in obscurity, no-one ever reading my words at all. These things have all happened to me at one point or another, to one degree or another. They range from unpleasant to deeply painful, but they're not the worst thing.

The worst thing doesn't have to do with any external factor. It's all inside my writer's psyche (wherever that is). The worst thing, the biggest fear, is endings.

Endings are the most important part of the story. The beginnings are where you get to show how clever you are as a writer. The great humping middle is an exercise in endurance and ingenuity. But the ending-

The ending is where you've got to step up to the plate. It's where you have to make a stand, and in some form or fashion let the reader know what it is the book stands for.

A bad ending, a false ending, an ending that takes a cheap or easy way out, ducking the story questions- when I read one of those, I think 'what the hell did the author waste my time for?' I don't have to agree with an ending, or even understand it. But I do have to respect it. Give me truth, or failing that give me beauty, but don't leave me empty handed.

For quite a few years I couldn't finish anything because for those years I knew I was going to leave the reader empty handed. I told myself everything I was writing was trite, and some of it was. But the problem wasn't that. The problem was, I was in a place where I could not end anything with truth or beauty, because they were both things I no longer really believed in.

There are other, valid ways to end a tale, don't get me wrong. They're just not my way. I don't even mind trying and failing. The worst thing is starting over and over, knowing you'll never be able to write an ending.  

Scalpel, hacksaw, sutures. Meditate

I have been introduced to the arcane art of OCR (optical character recognition software) thanks to Expat @ Large, and am no longer retyping Thagoth from printouts of screenshots of my ebook. This is good.

I hate my book. This is less good news, though perhaps to be expected. After all, it was written almost ten years ago, and it was my first novel, and it shows.

This evening I converted almost 10,000 words to manuscript format (OCR is not good with 'w' or 'I' or 'mr' recognition, and confuses , for . as well as often missing " so there's quite a bit to fix. It also does not catch paragraph breaks. For all that, I'm still moving a lot faster than transcribing by hand.)

The thing is, it started off as over 15,000 words.I took a hacksaw to a major subplot of the novel.

Why? Because it was cheesy, it didn't add anything except a bit of (trite) characterization, it slowed down the pacing, and I hate it with a fiery, hate-filled hate that gives me heartburn. I have no idea what I thought I was doing when I wrote it.

I also took a scalpel to a whole lot of sentences. Needless dialog attributions, unnecessary filler words, snicker-snack, the vorpal word-processing highlighter cut them right out.

Thagoth was, if I recall correctly, about 86,000 words. The complete version of the rewrite will likely not break 80,000. And that's quite alright, as long as every word counts.

First meditation: Every word of your manuscript should pull its own weight. Too much of Thagoth is seriously dead weight. I am tempted to pull it all apart and start from scratch, but that way lies madness.

And the thing is, it's been so many years since I've looked at the book in its entirety, it's almost as if I'm some disinterested observer. Parts of what I've edited so far, I actually got a bit excited about re-reading. "Oh, yeah, the part where she meets the naked old tatooed man and the freaky ghosts. Cool!" Stuff like that.

Those are the parts, the set pieces that were the most fun to write, I realize, when I was sitting in that 24 hour coffee shop across from the University of Texas, chain smoking, wired on caffeine, chuckling to myself. The bits that drag? Those were the times I was just knocking out my apportioned word count. Thagoth never got the second draft revisions it needed, for all that it was looked over by a real live New York editor. (I suspect she knew she was on her way out, and just sort of phoned it in.)

Second meditation: being done with your first draft is not being done. You need to let that baby simmer, then stir some more. Just try not to let a decade pass.

I'm also inserting a few continuity points here and there, since Thagoth (renamed The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye) will soon be the second book, chronologically, in the Amra & Holgren series (The Blade That Whispers Hate being the first, unless I decide life is just too easy and write a pre-prequel.) It's the little stuff you have to keep an eye out for when you retrofit a novel. Stuff like when Character A says they've never been to Character B's house, but in the prequel they visit often.

Well. Anyway it's late here. Enough babbling.

All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well

I haven't posted. I apologize. Life has been rather busy of late, both work-wise and family-wise. I hope to catch up on all my obligations this week, so if I've promised you something, keep an eye on your inbox.

On the writing front, a few items of note:

• Random House has agreed that, yes, the copyright for Thagoth has indeed reverted to me, and that they 'grant my request'  that they stop selling it. Of course, they're still selling it at the time of this writing. I'm supposed to wait for a letter that is supposed to arrive this week (cue eye roll). I'll be re-releasing Thagoth (once Random House finally stops selling it) as the full version of 'The Thief Who Spat In Luck's Good Eye'. Target date: Who-The-Hell-Knows.
• In preparation for this momentous event, I got my lazy ass in gear and took screenshots of every page of Thagoth and and am in the midst of transcribing the resulting jpegs into word format. Lesson imparted: Always, always keep multiple backup copies of your work. Retyping 86,000 words is only slightly more fun than stuffing a pipe cleaner up your urethra.
• Anybody know a good, cheap typist?
• After reading this interview, I've realized I need to stop obsessing over the rankings of my books. That time can be much better spent.
• As expected, I've received a polite, professional 'no thanks' from the literary agent I previously mentioned. I also expected to feel some rancor, or at least disappointment. Instead, my reaction was a sort of mild relief. Now I can focus on the (independent) path ahead. We'll see if my 2013 prediction pans out as well.
• Much as I love them, and much as they helped me jump start y creativity and overcome writer's block, I'm putting any future Pill Hill Press writer's shootouts on hold. I've simply got to focus on the mountain of longer fiction that I need to complete, not new short stories.
• Man, I've been especially gassy lately. I love a good fart as much as the next dad, but there comes a point where nobody is willing to pull your finger anymore.

A steak knife, a cow and a military officer

What do these three things have in common? I have no idea, but I need to figure it out before Sunday.

 (That's the final prompt for the Pill Hill Press Winter Shootout. I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting story to write; and by interesting I mean 'oh crap'.)