How to Experience the World Like an Alien!

As a writer, one of the most fascinating people I've come across on the internet, not someone I know, but someone I've seen, is Tommy Edison.

I've always wanted to write a story told from a truly alien perspective. Tommy shows me how by just being blind, that he thinks about the world in a radically different way than I do. If I can't see things from a different angle then I can never hope to write my alien story.

Tommy has been blind since birth, and has been putting up YouTube videos forever about what it's like to live this way. I've found them endlessly fascinating because each time I watch one, I learn some new thing I take for granted.

Unfortunately, I can't embed some of my favorites of his, but his perspective on the world is so radically shaped by how he's experienced it. I love this guy.




I love it, "How do you lose stuff? Can't you SEE?"

Neil DeGrasse Tyson: I Love That Man

I don't actually know that man, but I have a lot of love in my heart, and am willing to share it, from afar, until I feel it's been misplaced. So, I currently love Neil, who gave an interview that I also love.

This is the backbone of Science Fiction. This is why I write. I may not be able to instill the sense of wonder in others that this sort of thing evokes in me. But that is the reason I try.

The first SF book I read that wasn't Star Trek related, as an adult, was Ring, by Stephen Baxter. It took a real scientific mystery (discussed in the video below) and made it the central item the novel's heroes had to uncover if they hope to save the world from disaster.

I tip my hat to Neil. It's a long interview, so grab a bag of chips, sit back, an enjoy.

Once You Die, You Still Have Choices to Make

Attentive followers might note that last weekend Sandra posted a great short video that gave an admirable explanation for Fermi's Paradox.

Well, from the same creator is an even shorter video on what life will finally be like once we can upload our consciousness and live forever.

Enjoy

Are You Ready?

The great myth out there about indie publishing is of people (mostly women, I think, although I could be wrong about that), not quite dressed, feverishly pounding out a manuscript and immediately uploading it to Amazon. These manuscripts are full of plot holes and are only half-baked, besides, and are unedited messes. "Messes" is a euphemism in this instance. In short, they, the manuscripts and the authors, were not ready for publication.

But what is ready? I've certainly read some (a lot) traditionally published books that I would describe the same way, but someone, somewhere, thought those books were "ready." Which is not to say that I think it's okay to just throw your crap against a Kindle to see if it sticks.

So let's go to the sports box for an analogy. You know, for someone who is not sporty at all, I use an awful lot of sports analogies.

Let's say you want to run a marathon. No, I don't want to run a marathon, but let's say that you do. You fool.
Anyway... so you want to run a marathon. Probably, you are not just going to decide the day before to do that or, even, the week before. You are going to decide months before and, then, you're going to train. Let's call it practice. You're going to practice running.

But you already know how to run? You don't need any practice. Sure... I can run, too, but I can't run a marathon. If I decided to do that (which I won't. ever), I'd practice.

So you spend months doing this running practice and the marathon is coming up, and you're sure you can't win it. In fact, you're not sure you can actually finish it. You think you might be able to, but you're not sure. So, the question is, do you run the marathon? Are you ready?

It's one of those questions with no correct answer. Well, if you know you're not going to get more than five miles in, you probably should choose the "I'm not ready" option. However, if you think you can make 20 miles, you might want to go for it.

The issue with being ready is that you have to be ready in comparison to yourself and what you want to achieve, not ready in comparison to some other runner out there, like Wilson Kipsang (the current holder of the fastest time for running a marathon). Not being able to run a marathon in two hours is not a reason not to do it. However, I would suggest that not being able to go more than five miles might be a reason to wait on entering a marathon.

Publishing and self-publishing are kind of the same way. The question to ask yourself is, "Have I done everything I can do to make this manuscript the best it can be?" Let me say that again with emphasis, "Have I done everything I can do to make this manuscript the best it can be?"

Let me be clear about why I say it that way.
Also, let me be clear that this is one of those things with which a lot of people will disagree.

Unless you are already making money off of your writing, you should never pay for editing or cover art or, well, anything. Money that you spend on getting you book into "better" shape or making it look "more professional" or whatever will almost always be money, basically, flushed down the toilet. Let me put it another way: You have almost no chance of making that money back. Well more than 90% of people out there self-publishing never make any real money from it, and, every year, almost as many small publishers go out of business as go into business. This is not a money-making career move for most people. To make money, you have to do one of two things: stick with it a long time or get incredibly lucky.

So... Don't waste your money on "professional" services. Just don't do it. It's not going to help you sell your first book. [What will help you sell your first book, though, is a second book and, actually, a third book.]

And, see, I'm saying all of this as someone who will be turned off by your misspellings and grammar errors. However, I'm also looking at the very practical side of things: Most people don't care about your misspellings and grammar errors. Most people won't even notice them. So, as much as I would like to say, "Make sure your book is well-edited before you throw it out there," I also know that it doesn't matter to at least 80% of the people out there that are your potential readers. The only important thing is the story.

Also, sometimes, it's the going for it when you can't actually finish that will help you finish the next time, but, if you don't take that first leap, you may never do it. For instance:

When I finished writing The House on the Corner, I didn't have any cover art for the book. I knew I had a good story, but I had no way to make a cover or pay for art. Basically, I had done everything I could do at that time to make my book ready, so I published it. It was only by doing that that I met Rusty and ended up with the awesome cover art that House now has. [I would provide you a pic of the cover, but, for some reason, blogger is not letting me do that, so you'll have to click the link to check it out.] Sometimes, it's joining the race that allows you to go farther than you could have on your own.

None of this is to say that you should just throw your manuscript out there as soon you finish with it. I've talked to too many people that have said things like, "No, I didn't edit it; I just wanted to get out there. I didn't want to waste time on that." There's really no excuse for that kind of behavior. Like I said, do everything you can do before you go forward and publish your book. If you have people that can help you out (like trading services or out of generosity or whatever--anything that's not paying people), take advantage of that, but never, NEVER endanger yourself or your family financially to pay someone to edit your manuscript or make a cover for you. Not unless you happen to just have extra money lying around and you're not actually trying to make writing your livelihood.

Seriously, if you look at some of the stuff out there that's popular (or has been popular), you'll see that the public at large is rather forgiving. I'm not, but they are; and they're the people you want to buy your book. If you can make your readers happy, don't worry about the rest. I mean, if the story's good, even I'll overlook some grammar issues.

So... are you ready?

Bootstrapping For Succes: Turning a Grilled Cheese Sandwich Into A Best Selling Novel

WHY DID I SELF-PUBLISH, and how did I know I was ready?

Wow, that’s impossible to answer. It’s right up there with trying to explain love to a man that's color blind. Or to describe what chips are to a Brit, i.e., impossible.

Those two questions are mingled all up inside each other like a tapeworm in a colon. It is, however, something worth looking into. It’s a long story. So please, sit back and enjoy.

FICTION WRITING IS JUST LIKE learning to be a gourmet chef. Yes, anyone literate can write. But that doesn’t mean they can do it well. I can make a grilled cheese sandwich that probably won’t make you throw up, so I guess that makes me a master chef, right?

Again, maybe. But probably not. The thing is, my kid thinks my grilled cheese is amazing, my friends are always telling me my grilled cheese is amazing. I mean, how much harder could it be to run a kitchen for a restaurant with a Michelin star?

I could probably stretch this metaphor out for a while, but hopefully, my point is coming through. How can I, the writer, know when I’m ready to open my fine dining restaurant for the world to enjoy?

Wait, instead of leaving that food metaphor behind, I started mixing it with writing talk. Dammit. See? This is exactly what I was talking about. Don’t know what the hell I’m doing. 

Anyway, if I’m going to pick back up on my cooking thing, I look at the craft as something that can be broken down into smaller bits. Some things are like chopping vegetables, necessary, and something that you get better at very quickly. You get that down, then you move on to the more complicated things.

Me, I’m the sort of guy that starts with the complicated parts, then works backwards to reverse engineer the skills I need to be competent. If that sounds unnecessarily complicated, well, welcome to how I do things. It’s not pretty.

The truth of the matter is, I decided that writing was something I wanted to take seriously about a decade ago. Already in my thirties, I figured I’d wasted my formative years on sports, girls, video games, music, and reading… oh wait, maybe that last part wasn’t so much a waste.

In fact, I’d been reading for so long that I thought I would make a great story just because I wanted it to be, well, great. And when I wrote something, the euphoria of creation made me think I was a genius on par with the very best this world has ever known.

In a stunning plot twist, that turned out to be, a lie.

If something like the Kindle had been available then, I probably would have put up the first thing I ever wrote, a slightly cleaned up first draft from a first time writer, and called it my masterpiece.

But that wasn’t an option. A year or so after I wrote that would-be novel, I took a class offered by a local author through our continuing ed department at my local University. Each week, we’d read the first 20 pages or so of someone’s work and discuss, in the Milford method, how it was.

And so I read critically, probably for the very first time. I learned a few things. There were local people, in my little town, that were way better than I thought they’d be. In fact, as I learned re-reading my own work with a critical eye, that almost everyone that submitted work turned in something much better than what I'd managed to write.

I was crushed. The way the class was structured meant I still had a few weeks before my first 20 pages were due to be turned in. During that time, I frantically read about three books on how to write a good story. I rewrote, revised, and all around, spent as much time working those first 20 pages as I did writing the whole damned novel in the first place.

I handed it in. It was critiqued. Turns out, it still wasn’t there. It wasn’t what people said to me that made me realize that. It was in their eyes. The way they danced around and politely suggested things that I should have known. You know, like when you tell the 4 year old from across the street that pooping in the kitchen floor isn’t the best place for that. People were having a hard time finishing my excerpt.

So, the class ended, but the group continued to meet. I keep rewriting, keep working out the bugs. I put up that story and started another, then another, and still another. I wrote short stories, more attempts at novels, but I kept coming back to the first story I ever wrote, the one that had been my ‘one great idea’ that I’d tinkered with throughout my twenties when I spent years just researching and never writing.

Eventually, Angry Robot books had an open door window. I’d felt like I was getting better. I might not have unabashedly loved my work when I reread it, but I also didn’t feel like it was unreadable, there were times I would laugh at a particular turn of phrase, or a plot twist I’d forgotten about would shock me during my annual reread.

So, that open door window I mentioned, the publisher, the same one that first discovered Lauren Beukes and Chuck Wendig, two monstrously successful writers, had that open call for novels. They asked for the first 5 chapters of your completed novel for consideration.

Just one more editing pass to go!

That first story, the one I’d tinkered with for years. The one that I’d submitted the first 20 pages for all that time before in that writer’s workshop. I’d not touched it in at least a year, aside to just read it again. But it was there, more or less finished. Collecting (digital) dust.

So, I took the first 5 chapters and sent it off.

I got a simple email a few months later telling me that they felt the story had potential, and asked for the full manuscript.

I felt like I’d won the lottery. I sent them the full, as requested, and then sat on pens and needles while I waited.

It was during this time that I decided I was ready. The kindle had been out by now for a year or two. People were starting to make waves in the wider world. Amanda Hocking was the soup de jour, and the wild west opened up for all of us would-be 49ers.

Damn, what did I just write in that last paragraph?

A Dead God’s Wrath was a story I’d just finished at the time. A novelette set in the south in the 1890’s. Of course with spec fic items all over it.

In retrospect, I wish I’d waited. I think another pass over the text would have helped (I have gone back and re-edited it since). But I never pulled it down, I feel like the work I’m doing now is better than what I was doing then. But I suppose I’ll always feel that way. It will be a sad day when I look back and think my best writing is behind me.

I slowly started trickling out stories to the kindle, I didn’t dump my whole backlog there, but as time goes by and new things catch my eye. I think fondly on the 5 novels or so that I’ve tucked away for safe keeping.

In the end, Angry Robot decided I wasn’t quite ready for prime time. I had been encouraged enough that I sent the manuscript out to most of the big 6 (that’s how many there were then) that would accept my unsolicited slush, and they all passed. I submitted it again somewhere last year, a smaller house, and they wrote me a very nice letter back and asked me to revise and resubmit.

I haven’t done that, by the way, I’m not sure why. Partially, It’s because I submitted the first 5 chapters and it was good enough that they wanted to see more. When I sent it out to a beta reader later, they said that the second half was what made the book good, and that they’d never would have read past the first 5 chapters if they’d picked it up in the bookstore (I asked for that kind of feedback, btw, they weren’t being mean). And since I'd gong over so many times, rewriting it over and over that I'd lost perspective. I couldn't tell what was good advice and what was bad.

And the other reason, and probably the main reason, is because it’s something I’ve had as a part of me for a decade now. And I’m almost afraid to do anything with it. For me, it’s like spending 17 years waiting for the next Star Wars movie and building it up in my head to be this thing that nothing can ever compare to. You know, if it doesn’t take the world by storm, or it gets lackluster response, then I’m afraid it will crush me.

So, it sits, it waits.

And in the meantime, I have fallen in love with self-publishing. I hope to continue putting stories out there forever. No matter if I have success with doing I the old fashioned way or not.

2014: Finally Living in the Future

IN THE CHINESE CALENDAR, 2014 is the year of the Horse. This makes my wife much happier,  as she like horses much more than snakes, the animal that 2013, um, belongs to.

You know, I realize that I really don’t understand the Chinese calendar animal thing very well at all. I probably shouldn’t have led with that.

Too late though, I’ve already typed a whole bunch of words, and I can’t delete them, they are precious to me. Every. Last. One.

Even the typos.

But… I think my wife’s enthusiasm is contagious. I feel like there are things coming this year that are worth looking forward too. For you, dear reader, there is a list SF&F things to be excited about this year.

IN BOOKS: Alastair Reynolds is my main man. His next book in his trilogy of the future history of

humanity is due out in the states this year. My brethren across the pond have already had this since last September. I ALMOST bought one and had it shipped here, but I decided against it and determined to wait it out until I can get my ‘legit’ copy. It’s hard, but I’m doing it.

Brandon Sanderson is releasing the next installment in his 10 book series about, well, whatever it’s about. I don’t actually know what it’s about, but the first book was pretty awesome, and it’s been a few years. I’m very excited.

But beyond those things, I'm really excited to make a dent in my pile of books that I purchased in 2013, 2012 AND 2011 that I still haven't read yet. 

IN MOVIES: Anything by Marvel, Captain America 2, The Guardians of the

If there is a Raccoon as the star, I'm all in!

Galaxy. Then there are Marvel properties, Spider-Man 2, X-Men... ah... 7? There is that Tom Cruise movie where he keeps dying, that looks cool. There is Interstellar, Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic.

And a whole bunch of other stuff there too. Movies sometimes have great concepts and not so great executions. My favorite movie of 2014 may end up being a story of a man eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's really hard to tell with those things.

The Doctor is dead! Long live the Doctor!

AND IN TELEVISION: A new Doctor takes the stage in Doctor Who. SyFy has a new show called Helix coming out in a few days that I hear is really good. Agents of Shield will have to be better this year. I'm sure Honey Boo Boo will win the miss teen USA or something. Honestly, there is way too much stuff on TV. I typically let people tell me when something is amazing before I watch. 

But above all else, I'm looking forward to the things I'm not expecting. Things that hit me out of nowhere and totally capture my imagination. That's the thing that keeps me excited about the future. The unknown.