In 2009 I broke all my records for writing income (still beer money, but getting there) sold a short novel, and broke into a couple of those markets that had been taunting me for years (there are still quite a few that are making faces at me and mocking my attempts to climb their slush mountains, but I'm confident I'll get them this year!). I also completed my second full-length novel, and my first full-fledged space opera. Most importantly, I made loads of new friends in the writing world - some bought my work, some read my work, and others did neither, but I enjoyed interacting with you all! I can't complain at all. On the personal side (and you all know that I'm not into talking about it all that much online), the year had its ups and downs, but nothing truly serious. Every door that closes opens the possibility of exploring a different path, and some doors make an extremely saisfying thunk as they shut behind you. I'm currently walking away from one of those doors now, and I feel about five hundred pounds lighter - and truly enthusiastic about what the future holds for the first time in a while.
So... much more good than bad in my 34th year, and I'm hoping for more of the same! Writing-wise, I haven't been doing much updatery because I've been polishing Siege. First chapter done and no truly serious idiocies encountered. This should change as I get deeper. |
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In my quest to read my contributor's copies, I finished off Golden Visions April-May-June 2009 edition (which contains my story "Schism"). This one was quite strong, with quite a few really good pieces, by Richard Zweiker, James C. Hall, C.L. Rossman and Ivy Reisner. Overall, the best issu of GVM I've seen so far (still have another issue in my to-read pile).
In addition to this, I also began the revision work on Siege. Did edits on a page and a half - a symbolic beginning, of course, but I'm no longer staring at a metaphical blank page.
I received my contributor's copy of The World is Dead. Nice looking book, this one, and I'll be reviewing it once I clear a little more of the backlog. I'm very happy that the postal system down here didn't swallow it...
I also got my $30 gift certificate from Anthology Builder, because my story "Rain Over Lesser Boso" was a finalist in the "Match that Artwork" competition.
Both cool things, of course, but not necessarily what writing is about. What really makes me feel like a writer today is that I just flattened the city of Riga (actually, this happened off-camera, and the rest of the world suffered a similar fate, but Riga hurt a lot because it is one of the prettiest cities on the planet), and dumped my characters in an untenable situation. And I did all of this in 250 words - imagine the damage I could do in a thousand or so...
Guess we'll find out. More writing planned on this short story later today.
How about you guys? Done any serious harm to the planet in the course of your writerly adventures?
I will take a few days to feel very pleased with myself, dance a little jig and howl at the moon for a bit before the polishing and rewriting begins.
So, anyone want to beta-read an uncorrected first draft? I generally try to get all comments in before I begin the process of polishing the novel. Drop me a line here or at gbondoni (at) hotmail (dot) com.
On the writing side, I got 2400 words done last night. This got me to the end of chapter 24 of Siege and a third of the way through chapter 25. The novel should be done in 6K words or less! So close!
I have always believed - quite firmly - that humanity has only one future if it is to remain relevant, and that is the conquest of space. Humans have always been an exploring species, and this must continue. I have a hard time understanding people who believe that money spent on space exploration would be better employed elsewhere. No matter what example, humanitarian, infrastructure or whatever, they cite, I always end up thinking that the thinking behind it is completely limited, and shows a huge lack of big picture thinking. I have been told in no uncertain terms that I am completely wrong, but I still don't see it.
We live in a world in which the scientific achievements are such that much of our currrent tech wasn't even imagined by science fiction writers as late as the sixties, and yet, the things they saw as important have not come to pass. We still haven't even reached Mars... It's terrible to think that mankind's greatest achievement, the Apollo XI moon landing, ocurred before I was born. Nothing since has come anywhere near that. So much for progress.
Of course, there are reasons for this, and most of them have to do with tendencies in the western world. Consumers have come to expect comfort and entertainment, and the west's best minds have moved away from real engineering challenges to the safe confines of computer science. They don't care that another doubling of processor speed really doesn't matter - they just know that the sheeple buy into it and that they, the designers, get paid. Meanwhile, humanity has better video games and larger and more unwieldy operrating systems.
Another social tendency that is keeping the west back is the slashing of funding to go to social plans, wars or whatever other politically expedient issue comes along. This is the very definition of short-sighted. They go after immediate goals while forgetting the really important things. Particularly unsettling is the situation in the US, the traditional leader in space, where science has been under siege for years, and where any sense of adventure seems to have been crushed under the weight of the PC nightmare (TM). I don't think this will be reverted any time soon - most people just aren't interested.
This lack of interest is also affecting the genre. As people move away from an interest in science and progress, fantasy becomes more popular than science fiction (sound familiar?), and the genre suffers for it. You see, fantasy is fine (I personally love fantasy), but it isn't, in my opinion, as significant as SF, which requires knowledge and the capacity to work within a scientific restrictions to make it work. It's the difference between what might be, and what never will.
So, is the trend irreversible? Is there no hope?
Well... I would actually say that not only is the trend reverisble, there are people already working on it. Except that most of us won't be comfortable with the way it's being done.
You see, most of the world's people live in Asia. They do not speak English. They are not Europeans. And they are not constrained by western thinking on political issues. They are well on their way to leading the world economically, and after that they will do so politically.
The Western world will become irrelevant on a changed world slate (except as a problem, something akin to today's middle east). If China, for example wants to go to Mars as a question of national pride, they will (they have already sent men into orbit with no help from the west). If India wants to establish, in response, a base on the moon, they will as well. Eventually, someone will go beyond that.
The west and its limited imagination will be confined to Earth, and that is a good thing. The limited thinking that is leading to the decline is not something we want to take with us. I really hope that it isn't too late to revert it, but I see nothing coming out of the US or out of inward-looking Europe, spending more and more on social plans, to give me hope. All I can do right now is to root for the Taikonauts.
In spite of all this, I still wrote 600 words into Siege last night. A science fiction novel! So I guess I should be looking for a good Chinese translator!
I also need to research a good potential home for a Sci-Fi reprint collection that (because of rights reversions) could be released in October 2010. There are two important things to consider here. The first is that books take quite a while to get done if they are done right, so a year's lead time seems about right for a pitch to a small press (a year at the very least). The second thing is that not every publisher wants to look at collections, so it will take a while to narrow it down to 2 / 3 to send the pitch to (suggestions, of course, are always welcome).
Both preconceptions were proven wrong when I read the book. The Illustrated Man is a collection of science fiction stories, extremely pulp-era in feel (as they should be - they're from 1948-1950). There are some fantastic elements, and some magical ones, but even they are set in SF settings. There was one story I'd read before (a good one): "The Fire Balloons".
As for the reading experience, the most jarring element is the fact that both Venus and Mars are generally considered to be habitable, with breathable air. You have to be able to ignore this in order to enjoy the book. On the other hand, these stories are not about the science, but about people in extreme situation, and most of them hit you right between the eyes (Bradbury isn't allergic to the occasional low blow or cliché, but always elegantly written). All in all, an effective and enjoyable voyage back into the pulp era, with one in particular, "The Concrete Mixer", being absolutely, gloriously funny and brilliant!
As for the framework offered by the Illustrated Man himself, I felt it added little to the book. I might have enjoyed it more, and read it earlier, if it had been presented as a collection of SF shorts.
With regards to my own writing, 300 words into Siege means I no longer stare at a blank page when I look at chapter 24.
In other news, for those curious to see the complete list of Anthology Builder competition finalists, here's the list! Congrats to all, and I'm looking forward to crossing swords with you in the definitive round. May the best story win!
I'm glad I went through it again. The Easton Press edition that prompted the reread was a beautiful book that gives the novel a certain gravitas - which is well suited to it. I just wish that Easton would get its act together on the shipping side of things. They seem to have enormous trouble getting my books to me while people like Amazon have never missed a shipment. This is getting serious enough that I may have to cancel my subscription.
In other news, Siege advances with another 1300 words last night, while a short fantasy piece got about 150.
I received word this morning that I am a finalist in the Match That Artwork Contest over at Anthology Builder. For obvious reasons (in case the judging is anonymous), I won't mention the name of my story or say what it was about, but I'm very happy to be there, and the list of judges is simply amazing.
The reason I entered this one is that I believe that the business model in which you create your own anthologies with only the stories you select and they send you a printed copy of the book is a brilliant combination of what consumers want: flexibility and printed books. For the first time since Henry Ford's production lines, technology is making it possible to get customized products at a comparable cost to mass-produced items, and the companies that take advantage of this in an intelligent way are likely to become the standard bearers in the 21st century.
The publishing world is in the middle of a great change. Identifying which technologies are worth attacking and which aren't is going to be very important in the next few years. Writers actually ahve it easy. The oonly thing that keeps us from exploring new media is the quantity (and quality, of course) of our output - we don't have to take financial risks.
So what do you think the publishing world will look like in five - ten year's time?
Wordcount check: 450 into Sioege, 240 into a new fantasy story, and I also worte a review for SF Reader.
Also in a bit of a music mood. Had a YouTube video of U2's Vertigo tour concert in BA on for a while (the best concert ever - how many concerts have you been at in which the crowd is jumping for the entire show?) I've been to concerts everywhere, from Argentina to London(Live 8 - funny story linked to this one, for another time) to Mexico and in the US, and this is one of the few things I would prefer to do in Buenos Aires than anywhere else. A lot of bands play BA for free (insane as this may sound) or for reduced purses because of the energy from the crowds. I had the pain in my legs from the jumping here for days...
Anyone who disagrees with this assessment.... Well, I can only conclude that you've never been further south than Rock in Rio (which is recommended, but lacking).
Currently listening to: New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
Briefly (and without spoilers), it tells the story of a physicist from an anarchist society who visits a non-anarchist society on a neighboring planet.
I found the novel itself conceptually brilliant for what it set out to do. It's a very politically oriented book written in the depths of the cold war (1974), which deals with three different political systems (anarchism, communism and capitalism) and how they see one another. Especially interesting are the flaws in each system as seen by members of the others. It's been called a feminist book, but I didn't really see it as such, as the economic politics were much more front-and-center than the subtle gender issues. Perhaps the roles played by women would have been considered more radical in the seventies? I don't know, maybe one of the scholars on my flist can educate me.
I would group this book with the great purely political SF books such as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. It's definitely better than the other, lesser member of this science fictional group, The Handmaid's Tale. My opinion is that two factors have held it back from having the same mainstream impact as the others (though, again, I think it will be more widely read in a hundred years than the Atwood): the fact that it's set on a planet other than Earth (a big no-no with the sadly limited literati) and the fact that it isn't a cautionary tale of a complete dystopia, but an exploration of different philosophies.
As a story, it takes a while to grip the reader (at least in my case). I only really began to care about the characters about three-quarters of the way in. The story itself isn't fantastic, and the reader only really cares about the fate of the main character (despite the galaxy-changing events he sets in motion), but the story is really just an excuse for the discussion of ideas. This might not be a "fun" book, but it's an important one.
In other news, I seem to be in the mood to write comedy this week. Since last post, I've put 1700 words into The Malakiad, my on-again, off-again humorous fantasy novel, and a further 300 into Siege, which creeps toward completion.
Yesterday was one of those days in which I wrote the first few hundred words onto different stuff: I started a new chapter in Siege, and also a new S&S story in my Sangr series - neary 400 words on each of these. And I also wrote a tiny amount into my creepy SF story about a gaming system that goes nuts (220 words).
Argggggghhhh!
I have a question for all my LJ Friends: how many self-published writers have you heard of (other than friends, online and real life)? How many self-published books have you read? Were any of them any good?
Here are my answers:
1) None (except for those I've had to review, and I've forgotten the name of the writers already).
2) Quite a few. Book reviewers should qualify for hazardous work benefits.
3) Hell no. I've decided never to waste my time reviewing a self-published book ever again. This is a fixed policy, and I don't care how good you and your mom think your book is! Life is much too short for this kind of garbage. There are countless places on the net that explain the many reasons why SP books are terrible, so I won't go into it here.
Why am I all in a fury about this? Over on LinkedIn, there's a group for science fiction readers and writers which I am a member of. Lately, a self-publishing house has begn to send articles that give advice to new writers. These articles are normally extrremely helpful, well balanced and informative, and they are also part of a scam.
You see, the articles have titles like "your book is a small business, learn how to market it" and "how can I get my book onto the shelves" and "what kind of printing method works better for writers? The differences between offset and POD."
Notice a pattern? All of them start from the false premise that a writer has to pay in order to print their books and then has to market them, and that the money an author makes comes from their efforts in selling the resulting books. In other words, they treat writers like distributors. The factory (in this case a press), sells their product to a middleman who then gets the product to consumers. The cynical part of this is that the argument used by the factory to sell its product is that "YES! Now you're a published author". Er, no. You're not. You're the victim of a scam who has a garage full of books no one wants to read.
The problem has two causes. The first is the writers themselves. Too many people seem to finish books and are all starry-eyed and need to see the book in print right now. They want to believe a publisher when it tells them "YES, we want your book, and we'll cover all the costs. All you have to do is buy a hundred copies and send us a little something for the marketing expenses". I really pity these folks. They are completely victimized (although they should have done their homework).
The second cause is that getting published in the real world is hard work. Agents have high standards because publishing houses that only accept agented work have high standards. Even small presses have high standards. Nearly everything that lands in a slush pile will get rejected. Some people deal with this by going back and writing something else, or improving what they've already written. Other people go into denial and use words like "conspiracy" and "closed clubs" and "discrimination". These people also self publish, and also own garage-fulls of books no one wants, but I have much less sypathy for them. They are very vocal about their delusions, and have long since irritated the hell out of me.
A writer's job is to write, and maybe do a certain amount of self promotion after the book is published. The publisher's job is to sell the books. And all money at all times must flow towards the writer. This is the premise scammers want to convince us is not true. But we'll push back until they dry up and die.
Remember: publication is like making the Olympic team. Very few people deserve it, and those that do have worked very hard to get there.
In the meantime, I did some writing last night: 1300 words means that I now have a new SF story ready to polish and sub!
And now, I get to run off to try to keep up with what promises to be a hectic day, although it should also be a productivve one!
In other publication news, Shadows and Light, the anthology which contains my story "Sword of the Rasna" is now available to purchase. You can buy it through Amazon, or by following the link in the "News" section of my website . This second option gives me a cut, but I don't really mind - the important thing is that readers can enjoy the story!
I also read an interesting post about wht Charlie Stross hates Star Trek. I couldn't agree more, and this one is intimately related to why the establishment hates SF, despite knowing nothing about it except the moronic trash they see on TV. Remember to keep shouting at them until they listen!
Finallly, the obligatory word count section:
- 500 words into Siege.
- 700 words into an SF short about a dragon (yes, you read that correctly).
2300 words into Siege and 250 into a science fiction short are both unusually good results for a weekend. Now, to face the week!
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jongibbs was a resounding success, and I'd like to thank Jon once again for the opportunity. I had a lot of fun, and hope his readers did, too.I also did a little writing last night: 840 words into Siege and 250 into a strange little sci fi piece with miniature gnomes and a dragon or two.
In addition to this, I'll take advantage of the friday lull to catch up on my mini-reviews. This one is exclusively for racing fans, however. Formula 1 In Camera 1980-89 is a coffee table book matching Rainer Schlegelmilch's photography with Quentin Spurring's text. As you can probably imagine from Schleg, the photos are gorgeous (as are the cars - IMO, eighties formula one cars are matched only by those from the sixties for sheer beauty. The current gnomes are an eyesore in comparison), but it's the words that make this book - despite being confined to captions and a short introduction at the beginning of each section, the text is informative and brought back a lot of data that I never knew or had forgotten. The single criticism is that the Schlegelmilch seems to have confined his race attendance to European events in the eighties, which means that this book misses a lot of the action.
I've got a couple of mini-reviews to share today of reading done over the past couple of weeks, but first I wanted to direct everyone who loves the SF genre here (credit goes to
jaylakefor the link). As most of you know, I agree with this sentiment.
I'm very excited by the fact that we're finally pushing back, and especially by the fact that we're calling out the ignorant members of the establishment who continue to insist that books such as Nineteeen Eighty-Four, Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale aren't science fiction (the puzzling part of this is: how does one become a member of the literary establishment when one displays such an obvious lack of knowledge regarding what makes up each genre?).
Keep pushing, people. Maybe we can make the people who call Atwood and Vonnegut and even Crichton "mainstream authors" remove their heads from the dark places they currently inhabit. Remember: fighting ignorance is important, even if the ignorant are wilfully so.
So, on to the reviews.
First off, I finished reading Straken, by Terry Brooks. This one is anonther Shannara tale, and has all the elements of the same: magic, ancient evil and a somewhat fractured world. It's a good read, but certainly not a great one (the great read in this series is clearly The Elfstones of Shannara). The main problem I see with this world - although, admittedly, it doesn't interfere with the action - is that its origins are in the post LotR frenzy of the seventies, and that mashuup of elves, dwarves, etc. has survived until today, while most of the rest of the fantasy genre has moved on to fresher things.
The second thing I read was my contributor's copy of Flashing Swords #10 (yes, I'm still well behind on contributor copy reading). I have to admit that this one impressed me a lot more than I was expecting. All the stories are fast-paced and exciting, and nearly all are very well written. My conclusion is that the world of Sword & Sorcery markets is so small these days that all the published stories, in any publication, are really good (I got onto the ToC because I cheated and sent in a humorous story - the only one in the issue!). Best of the bunch was Michael Ehart's "The First Trial of Jermaish the King". I have now read two of his "Servant of the Manthycore" series, and am now convinced that I need to buy the collection - so my next Amazon shipment should include it.
Finallly, I continued to do some more writing. 420 words into Siege and 658 into the comic fantasy.