Writing and Victuals

Cake Makes Everything Better...

2012-01-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

...Even the inevitable march through time that is the aging process.

I turned 26 yesterday. Wifey made me a four layer strawberry cake with strawberry-rhubarb jam between the layers; covered in butter-cream frosting; and topped with chocolate chips.

Book Sale!

2012-01-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

I was finally able to announce this week that I sold Promise of Blood and two untitled sequels at auction to Orbit Books.

The tentative release date for Promise is spring of 2013.

I will be posting more this weekend. I'm still at my day job until next Wednesday, at which point I will be going FULL THROTTLE writer. This means that until then, I have limited time for blogging and the rest--and I still need to wear pants to work.

New Year

2012-01-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

As I get back in the swing of following blogs and such, I realize that everyone's making New Year Resolutions(tm). Sigh. Ok, here it goes:

I resolve to lose weight
I resolve to write consistently
I resolve to use both my blog and Twitter on a regular basis
I resolve to have a real actual website functioning before the end of the year
I resolve to not dump another 100 hours into Skyrim

Now that we have that out of the way, I can say that I will be going to ConFusion in Michigan. It's being held Jan 20-22 this year.

Oh, yes... I resolve to go to more events.

I enjoy Cons. I really do. I've only been to three, though, so it's not like I'm a pro. I've been to WorldCon twice and World Fantasy once. Never to any of the small ones, though I've heard they are a lot of fun.

The first two times I went with a large group of authors/fans/friends from BYU and so had people there to show me the ropes and hang out with. When I went to World Fantasy I certainly knew a couple people, but I was really flying solo for the first time ever. And, for the first time ever, I was peddling a book and let me tell you: I was terrified. I spent a lot of time wandering around trying to look like I knew where I was going, and a lot of time sitting in the corner reading or people-watching. I spent the whole weekend on about four hours of sleep and that did NOT go well.

This con, I hope to be able to relax a little more. I won't be trying to get someone to read my book and that will take a huge load off my shoulders. I'll be going with the express desire of making friends and getting books signed. It will be nice.

I've been reading Daniel Abraham's The Long Price Quartet over the last few weeks. I've through three books and have not yet gotten the fourth. However, I did just pick up Leviathan Wakes. It looks like it's still on sale for $2.99 at the Kindle store. I'm looking forward to reading it but it might have to wait till after ConFusion. I'm doing some catch up reading on authors that will be there so I don't feel like a total ass when I meet them.

"I'm so-and-so."
"Nice, I'm Brian, I've heard a lot about you."
"Thanks! What of my stuff have you read?"
"...nothing..."

I pulled that on Patrick Rothfuss back at the Denver Worldcon. I did have a good excuse, though--we only had one copy of Name of the Wind at the time and Wifey had been reading it.

Movie Roundup

2011-12-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

The first trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has hit a trailer website near you. When the music starts and you get shots of Ian Holm as Bilbo, you'll think, "crap, another one of those crummy teasers with footage from the first film and large gold letters demanding that we look forward to the next movie." But no, it's the real deal and I'm glad of it. Unfortunately, we won't be watching the movie itself until December 2012. A bit of a gap to be already tantalizing us movie trailers, hmm?

I'm already hooked, I'll be honest. When the dwarves start to sing I got chills. As many of my friends have pointed out over the years I'm a bit of a dwarf myself and they've always been my favorites anyway, so seeing Thorin and the rest got me downright giddy.

Wifey and I saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in the theater last weekend. As with the first, it was a mix of genuine Doyle and modern film making that I think really worked. Guy Richie was a perfect choice for the director both times, and I think a lot of other modern directors, even good ones, could have completely flopped it. I had my complaints, primary of which was Rachel McAdams' marginalized role. I liked her a lot as a foil for RDJ.

Speaking of RDJ, I finally got around to watching Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. It's been on my list of movies to watch for a very long time but it just never came to Netflix streaming, so I finally broke down and ordered the DVD. It had a very dark humor, an odd storytelling method, and made me wish that Val Kilmer did more stuff.

The Name of the Wise Man's Fear

2011-05-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure that was the book I read last week. It's all kind of blurred into one. No, wait. I think it was two different books because I started in paperback and ended on Kindle. So it was The Name of the Man and Wise Wind's Fear.

That's not right either.

The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear. There. I got it. 1680 pages of narrative. I read them in three days. Not that I'm a fast reader. Far from it. I'm a bit of a self-destructive reader which is why I don't read as much these days. I just can't handle the giant headache of have after spending the better part of 72 hours reading. But I can't help it. I get pulled in. Seduced by a new world, not allowing myself to wake from that lucid dream until the last page has been turned.

I'm utterly useless until I've finished reading a new book. Ask wifey.

Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle is a thing to behold. It's what Harry Potter would have been if Harry Potter would have been a little less... kid-ish. It's got sex and violence and murder and all the other good stuff. It's also chocked full of teen angst. Now, this kind of thing normally annoys the hell out of me. I hate teen angst. It's a lot of good-for-nothing whining. Yet Rothfuss pulls it off. I enjoyed the world, felt for the main character. Hell, I've never spent so many pages just praying for a character to get laid before. Maybe that's because I don't read chick lit. Who knows.

I'm kind of rambling. I don't mind. My brain is still resetting from spending so much time in Rothfuss' world.

I'm trying my hand at short stories lately. Three weeks, and I've written two pages. That's how successful I've been. Short stories are a wild thing. They have to be succinct and to the point in a way that novels can only dream. They have to be monstrously entertaining in less than two paragraphs. They are frustrating.

E-gads.

Fake Beatles and Rewrites

2011-04-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

Wifey and I saw 1964 the Tribute over the weekend. It was very well done. These guys have been a touring tribute act for 27 years, and are doing 120 shows a year. Kinda crazy. They've got the songs, the voices, the looks, all down really well. We had nosebleed seats, but honestly I think it helped with the illusion. It really felt like we were seeing the Beatles (aside from the lack of women throwing themselves at the stage and other such sundries).

Over the last four weeks I have rewritten about 1/3 of Promise of Blood. It's been kinda hectic, kinda draining, yet I feel it's been worth it. The first section of the book now moves much faster, there are some significant improvements with motivation and characterization, and I think things have been set up even better for the sequel.

The end result is I'm both burned out and empowered. I want to get working on a couple other projects but I also want to sleep for a week.

A Long Absence

2011-03-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

I've been on sabbatical the last few weeks. By "sabbatical" I mean that every time I should have written a blog, I went and did something else instead. Usually, that something else was reading. I've gone through a number of books lately:

The Crippled God - Steven Erikson
Making Money - Terry Pratchett
Thud! - Terry Pratchett
Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett
Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire - Ruth Downie
Westmark - Lloyd Alexander

As you can see, I've been on kind of a Terry Pratchett kick lately. I think I'd have read more if my local library had a better selection. It's hard to read one and not want to go right back into that world. I've been trying--unsuccessfully--to get my wife to start reading them.

New on the book: I had a long talk with my agent recently. I'm now working on a rewrite of about 40K words of Promise of Blood. Not exactly what I wanted to do, but I couldn't argue with many of the problems she had and the solution is a rewrite. The good news is, I'm excited about my plans for the re-write and I'm already about 15K words into it. It will make the first third of the book move faster and, hopefully, pull the reader in far better than the first draft would have.

On the thought of agents, I read a blog recently that talked about how agents are faring in all of this hubbub in the publishing world. I thought it was of particular interest because most news I see has to do with authors or editors, not the middleman.

Modern Fantasy, eh?

2011-02-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

I was doing a little pre-work blog reading yesterday when I came across this gem. I really don't know what to call it. It's not an analysis because no actual analyzation happens during the post. It's not a review, because it's not aimed at a particular book but rather an entire subgenre (or maybe even genre as a whole). No, let's just call it an opinion. It's one man's opinion of the modern fantasy genre--specifically naming two of my favorite authors: Joe Abercrombie and Steven Erikson. And a kind opinion it is not.

I don't have anything to say about the article. Ok, that's not true. I have plenty to say. None of it is nice and I couldn't put even a fraction of it into less than a page. Hell. I'm going to try anyway.

It made my blood boil in the same way literary elitists in the English program at college did. Not just because it attacks writing I like. No, it attacks a whole category of Fantasy that I someday hope to be recognized within. It takes everything I do, all of my hopes and dreams and career aspirations, and calls them "postmodern blasphemies against our mythic tradition" because one elitist zealot has gone all St. Augustine on the literary tradition of Fantasy, with Tolkien and Robert E. Howard as his Lords and Saviors.

I love Grandpa Tolkien. You're going to find few modern fantasy writers that don't. Most owe their career to his influence, at least in part. Yet he is not the Fantasy Jehovah. His works are not law, cannonized by higher authority, their words sacred.

I won't even start into the comparison between Tolkien and modern writers. It's unfair, and frankly naive. Howard is a much better comparison and I would bet one of my dogs (the smart one) that the creator of Conan the Barbarian would love Abercrombie's First Law series or Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen.

I'm gonna stop now. I think my most apt description of that article is naive. Naive and foolish.

I actually came across the article from Joe Abercrombie's blog, where he wrote a response. It was enjoyable.

Kindle: Week 3

2011-02-13T07:40:00.001-08:00

I've had my Kindle long enough to get a good feel for it. I still stand by everything I said in my Kindle 3 Review but I wanted to add a little more.

I'm really excited for the beginning of March. Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss and The Crippled God by Steven Erikson both come out on the first of that month. Those are both books in the "I don't care how poor I am I'm getting them" realm. However, the problem with these books go much deeper than whether I can really afford them. The problem is: which do I read first? I mean, seriously. How am I gonna choose? I've already decided that they will be the first two new books I buy on my Kindle. I will one day own the hardcover of both--I know, it's weird to buy a book twice, but I don't mind--and it's not like I'm exactly swimming in bookshelf space at my current house. These will therefor be the first giant epic fantasies I will have read on the Kindle. I'm curious how, if at all, this will change the experience for me.

Certainly my arms won't be as tired after reading for 18 hours straight.

I've discovered that my Kindle balances perfectly on the ipod holder on our elliptical. This is kind of a major breakthrough because it means I can read while I exercise. I love wheeling my desk over there and watched some Craig Ferguson on the laptop while I work out, but it doesn't release me from the torture that is prolonged movement quite the way that reading a book or a series of articles does.

I'm not dead yet!

2011-02-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

I'm about a third of the way through my Drums of War rewrite. It's going quite well. In other news, the Japanese have designed a machine that will turn office paper into toilet paper in thirty minutes. I can't imagine it's soft on the bum.

Get back to me when they design a machine that recycles paper into cheesecake.

A Day at the Beach

2011-02-03T07:07:00.001-08:00

Ok, it wasn't a day. More like thirty minutes. But still! Welcome to the north coast, people. Squint hard and you can see the lighthouse about a quarter mile out.

Post of Interest: Borders

2011-01-31T19:17:00.000-08:00

Borders has been going down the tubes for some time. This is the latest of many posts throughout the blogosphere that indicate how things are going. You should probably dish your Borders stock, if you haven't already.

2011-01-30T19:41:00.000-08:00

I would have joined Vader to rule the galaxy. Just sayin'.

My Kindle 3 Review

2011-01-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

The Good:
Screen size and weight. It feels like holding a (very) light paperback. I had no problems reading on my back for hours, holding the screen over my head (can't say the same for a Steven Erikson hardcover). The print size is adjustable for those with bad eyesight though I kept it at a standard paper-back sized font.
Didn't hurt my eyes one bit. The e-ink technology they use feels to the eyes just like reading a regular book and I don't know if I will ever touch my Kindle for PC application again.
The web browser is more of a pleasant bonus than anything else. As one of those barbarians without a smart phone it will be nice for checking things on wikipedia or reading my daily blogs when I'm someplace without my computer (but with wireless, for I did not get the 3G model for the extra $50).
It can hold MP3s. I'm sure I read this somewhere before buying, but it surprised me anyway. I threw a couple episodes of Writing Excuses on there yesterday but for anyone with an MP3 player this really isn't that fantastic. It doesn't have a lot of memory but will be a good place to keep audio books--if I ever buy one. What it does not have is a navigable menu for your MP3s; simply a press and play.

The "Meh":
The web browser goes under this, too. It has a tough time rendering pictures and can be slow and choppy. It has an awkward cursor thing that lets you navigate but is less than functional if you're in a hurry or at all impatient.
The touted free ebook archive we've heard so much about is kinda underwhelming. I'd hoped for something that I could browse during work, plucking this book and that and whisking it to my kindle. Instead I found links to several websites (archive.org, openlibrary.org, and gutenburg.org) not a single one of which I found "browseable." Go ahead and call me lazy. I don't mind. It just didn't live up to my expectations. I'd hoped to have hundreds of awesome old books on my kindle in a few days. I'm up to about sixteen that caught my interest and those were mostly childhood reads (Les Mis, Count of Monte Cristo, etc). If a book is public domain and you know exactly what you want, you will probably find it on one of those sites. But don't expect to jump on the internet and fill your bookshelf. Running down a brightly lit bookstore aisle with a shopping cart and carte-blanche this is not.

The Coolest Thing So Far:
I figured out how to put my own work on the kindle. It's really quite simple once you figure out how to save your files and where to put them. The formatting isn't perfect and I won't be able to effectively edit on the thing. What makes me the most excited is my ability to have a non-editing, comfortable read through of one of my books without having to sit at the computer. I kicked back on the couch and read Drums of War on and off throughout the last day and a half and was delighted.
It gave me a feel for how the book would look on a printed page. It didn't hurt my eyes or back and it didn't feel at all like a chore or work. It felt like I was on my couch reading a paperback. And that alone may be worth getting a kindle.

Post Birth/Town Blowing Up Day

2011-01-26T05:35:00.001-08:00

So my town caught on fire two days ago. They gave an evacuation order (which was then rescinded a couple hours later) and we skedaddled out of there with our pets for an impromptu trip to my parent's house. The whole thing made national news. Gas pressure spike, fires, no body hurt, etc. All in all a very exciting day. We didn't get heat back until about 9PM--which is fun when it's 10 degrees out.

And yesterday was my birthday. Yay! All of twenty-five years old. Fatter and more arthritic. Maybe a teeny bit wiser. Or at least more experienced in the deep, trying ways of this wearying world. *Insert epic sigh here.*

My kindle came in the mail yesterday. I'm very excited. You can see it below next to my keyboard, or for further reference, by Leto. I plan on spending a good amount of time with it the next couple days but here's my initial response:

-I love the size and the weight.
-I can see the screen perfectly without straining my eyes.
-The free book resources are a little underwhelming--you need to know what you want to find things.
-The web browser has it's downsides but it's still fun.

My Kindle is on the Way

2011-01-24T11:25:00.001-08:00

My awesome family banded together to get me a kindle for my birthday. I'm quite excited and while it won't be here for at least a few days I've started browsing the free books on Amazon. They are, of course, one of the biggest reasons I wanted a Kindle and definitely one of the big ways Amazon is marketing the kindle. I've already got some of the classics like Count of Monte Cristo, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Dracula, Art of War, The Prince, and Treasure Island. I look forward to reading them on my MAGICAL ELECTRONIC BOOK DEVICE!

Pizza Wednesday

2011-01-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Ebooks and a New Project

2011-01-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

About eight weeks ago my wife asked me what I thought about the Kindle. My response was something along the lines of "It's a vanity toy for technocrats and businessmen."

Yeah, I said that. I'm not proud.

Over the holiday season I read a slew of blogs and articles about ebooks ranging from fear that they're going to drive publishers out of business to jubilation that the next real thresh hold of printing technology has been reached.

I'm withholding judgment for now, and I may be for another twenty years because ereaders and the like are going to continue to change and develop just as fast as any other technology. I do think the development is wonderful. I also think it's scary, as I'll be entering my own writing career during a wave of changing practices and technologies and if I or any of the people I work with make the wrong decision at some point it could cost me a career--or at least hamper it decently.

I've done a lot of reading about ereaders lately. I have to admit. They look fun. Between constant promotional sales by some of my favorite authors like Steven Erikson and the giant library of free books Amazon has, I've decided it would be both practical and enjoyable. Mostly enjoyable.

So, tail between my legs, I went to Michele the other day and admitted I wanted a Kindle for my birthday. I've dropped some not-so-subtle hints to family members and maybe I can ~~schmooze~~ save up enough to buy one.

2011-01-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

I made these Fatrina muffins last week. They were tasty. Nothing more to report.

World Fantasy: Looking Back

2011-01-18T05:21:00.000-08:00

World Fantasy was a wonderful time last year. I quite enjoyed it and though I didn't do the networking I needed, I feel that the overall experience was key in me getting out my queries and ultimately getting an agent. It gave me a sense of purpose and helped me realize (as I do every time I go to a convention) that I'm a small fish in an ocean. Or something like that. There are a lot of writers out there trying to break into the field and this knowledge, whether new or old, can be rather daunting.

I'm not sure what difference there was between Denver and LA Worldcons and World Fantasy in Columbus, but I was far more manic than I'd ever been before. I hardly slept the entire weekend. I wandered a lot, and when I did have a chance to talk to an editor I babbled. By the time the Saturday night parties started I was frazzled and sleep-deprived and finally gave up and drove home at about 10PM.

I was really nervous about approaching people. One of my big regrets was when a friend offered to introduce me to John Scalzi and I never took her up on it. Since, John's blog has been one of the many I've begun to follow. From a writer's standpoint I understand that his book reviews can really do wonders for a person's sales and some face time would have been nice even if my first book is still many years from print. From a personal standpoint his wit and opinions are just the kind I enjoy in a person and he seems like the kind of guy you want to be friends with. Makes me wish I had shaken his hand.

Linkety-link

2011-01-17T19:09:00.000-08:00

I have gone through the bowels of hell and back again. Yes, that's right. I had a cold last weekend. I've spoken before about how I deal with illness (read: not well) so needless to say I'm glad to be back on the upswing. A full 522 page manuscript has been shipped of to Caitlin for her line edit. Honestly, I can't wait to get it back. I demolished 12K words during that last edit and the novel is much better for it.

Speaking of which, here's a blog post for you from Lightning and Lightning Bugs on Six Things I Wish I'd Known When Writing My First Novel.

I had the great benefit of taking Brandon Sanderson's Fantasy Writing Class at BYU and so I had this kind of advice earlier than most prospective authors but I think one really needs to finish their first novel and then read it a year later and realize what rubbish it is and learn these things for themselves. Early iterations of Butcher's Price amounted to well over 200K words of writing that I tossed in the trash can before actually finishing the novel (which didn't turn out quite as well as it should have anyway).

2011-01-10T06:23:00.000-08:00

These sweet rolls come from one of Michele's family recipes. I made two whole batches for Christmas dinner and they were utterly destroyed. I think we had three rolls left over for our breakfast the next morning. I can definitely say they are bakery quality. Light and fluffy with a powdered-sugar based glaze that soaks into the still-hot rolls.

Calzones

2011-01-09T18:34:00.000-08:00

I made my first calzones today. The first was kinda crumby. A teeny burnt, too thick, and I put too much sauce in it. Don't worry though. I decided research was a good idea AFTER the first one, so I looked for tips online and tweaked for the second and it came out looking very, very nice and not leaking even a little bit. I'm not sure how I feel about calzones. Most of the time they sound amazing but end up being a folded pizza with not enough flavors to make it worth it. Yet once in a while I get a calzone that is spicy and meaty without giving me heartburn and I go home feeling awesome. The calzones I made tonight were good as far as calzones go, but they were definitely of the first variety. I want to get good enough to make the second type. So. I'm gonna try ricotta on the next one.

As for my second edit: it is finished and looked over again and again. I feel really good about the changes I made. Bookstore Guy Steve gave the changes his thumbs up tonight (thanks for a look-see on such short notice). I knocked about eight thousand off the word count and it makes the story move along much faster. Adding chapter tags also helps artificially increase the pace as it gives readers strong markers for their progress.

I've been considering what to work on next. A lot of it will depend on my next conversation with my agent. I sent her a Promise of Blood sequel synopsis to glance at and I need to brainstorm book 3. I'm seriously considering a pitch for a five book series at this point as I think three is too short for the story I want to tell. That may not be sellable, however. You know. Me being a new author and all.

I hesitate to start book two until we've gotten a nibble from an editor. I have a subtle fear in the back of my mind that all of this will be for naught, and no one will accept my book and I'll have to go back to square one. So much for unwavering self confidence.

I really want to get back to a previous project. Not to the exclusion of a PoB sequel, of course, but rather as another brand to stick in the fire. If it takes Caitlin a month to get back to me with her edit of PoB, I may very well be able to have a finished Drums of War for her to look at. I feel that I have learned so very much from the experience with PoB that I can apply that to my old books (both DoW and Butcher's Price) and make some serious revisions and have a set of fantastic books to offer. Both DoW and BP were good books. I've become a better writer since completing them, and I've learned a great deal about storytelling and I can make them into sellable books.

So there's my musings for the night. I have an amazing feeling of being able to write anything right now--it's the same feeling I had before my five month marathon that culminated in Promise's completion. I think it's a good way to start the new year.

Holidays are Hell on Productivity

2011-01-02T16:31:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks has been somewhat of a whirlwind, as I'm sure it has been for pretty much everyone out there. I've been pretty much just a notch over useless for that period of time and to be honest, it was wonderful.

Caitlin was very kind to give me a soft date of January 10th for my next edit, and let me know that there was no pressure as we were not working with publishers yet. I'm going to keep the pressure on myself, however, as I need to learn to meet deadlines. I've got a lot of work done, I've got a lot of work to do, and I have seven days to do it in. I will be, ahem, unavailable until next Monday.

I got some great stuff for Christmas. Some wonderful essentials from everyone: my oldest brother's family gave me a new hand mixer and chocolate covered pretzels (yes, choco-pretzels are an essential). A new fondue pot from another brother, and a free-standing recipe holder from my sister, a hand made pizza peal from another brother, cookies and hand-made ornaments from another and numerous other awesome stuff that I'm surely offending people by not listing. I only now realized that easily three quarters of my gifts had to do with food or baking. That's what I get for giving everyone chocolate chip cookies for their birthdays.

I received another wonderful gift quite unexpectedly from Isaac Stewart (the guy who does a lot of art and maps for Brandon Sanderson's books and doesn't have a website so why don't you get on that Isaac?) in the form of Brandon's latest book, The Way of Kings. I'm looking forward to hitting that book hard while Caitlin has my next edit in a week or so.

I continually find myself about 60-100 posts (or 1-2 weeks) behind in my google reader and playing catch up to read industry blogs. An interesting trend I'm seeing for the year end is that agents who blog also like to put up their numbers for the year.

Being a numbers guy myself--I use spreadsheets for everything, from finances to WoW to writing--I enjoy this. The first thing I noticed was that agents are wildly different. I've been told this, but the numbers backed it up. Two single agents each pulled down around 3K and 5K queries for the year, and offered reps on just 10 and 2 manuscripts respectively. Another agency of two agents had total numbers of 36000 queries for the year (holy crap) and offered on... wait for it... 9 manuscripts. The numbers are kind of staggering to someone looking to get an agent and they make me feel really grateful that my book got the kind of response it did. An agent-less author should take some heart from the numbers though and realize that every agent wants different things, and is accepting different amounts, and don't get depressed about your first forty rejections.

A Year in Books

2010-12-22T06:14:00.000-08:00

I'm going to talk about a few books I read this year and why I like them.

I don't keep up with everything that comes out each year. I don't even keep up with a tiny portion of what comes out each year. So these books aren't ones that came out recently, necessarily--they're simply things I read. I've mentioned before that I need to keep in better touch with the industry and I'm doing that these days by reading blogs--the cheapest and fastest way to stay on top of what is going on. When I do get around to reading books its often a while after they came out.

I think I lag behind because I don't read much. Certainly not as much as I should. I can't afford books and I just don't get to the libraries these days--they rarely have what I want and when they only have one of a series I find myself spending money to buy the rest when I shouldn't. I'm a total snob. I'm not sure what did this to me because when I was a teenager I would read anything and everything that came into my possession. These days, I look at 98% of books and think "meh." I can safely blame my wife, who reads the last page of a book to decide whether its worth reading and then discards it pretty much without hesitation every time. I can blame Steve and Nick, the fellows who run Elitist Book Reviews because--in between gaming sessions where they completely destroyed my confidence in being able to play board games--they introduced me to a new tier of writers like Joe Abercrombie and Steven Erikson.

Soldier of Sidon by Gene Wolfe. Gene Wolfe is one of those giant names of genre fiction. If you read science fiction and fantasy it's just kind of understood that you have read Gene Wolfe. He was at World Fantasy and when I saw the immense line for his book signing table I realized that I'd never once read anything of his (that I can remember). So I went to the dealer's room and randomly snatched up a paperback. Soldier of Sidon is the third in a series, but I didn't feel out of place starting there. The first one came out in 1986, another in '89, and this one in '06 and this book is left without any sort of climax/wrap-up whatsoever so I'm wondering whether we'll see a sequel when Gene is 97. The book is written as a first-person journal account which is very similar to what I did in Drums of War (a book I plan on going back to next year) and it was very good to see what other people do with that technique.

Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson. This book sat on my bookshelf for about 3 months because I knew the moment I started I wouldn't be able to stop. It's the ninth, and second-to-last, book in the series and one word describes it: wow. I mean, it's a behemoth. The depth, size, and complexity honestly makes Robert Jordan look like an amateur. It's bold, bloody, and heartrendingly powerful. As a reader, I feel swept along, barely able to keep track of what is happening (and sometimes not at all), unable to do anything but read the next page.

The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. Read these books. Just... do it. The Blade Itself, Before They are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings. This series is phenomenally good. I feel like even the best of books tend to have a huge boring section in the middle. I didn't really feel that way with any of this series. Abercrombie turns a lot of conventions of fantasy on their heads in a really enjoyable way. I actually read this series last fall-winter, but I'm including it because I read it during the initial planning stages of Promise of Blood and it certainly had some influence, especially on structure.

Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook. This was actually a re-read. I first got this book at World Fantasy '08. Yes it took me until '08 to discover Glen Cook. I don't want to talk about it. As for this year's re-read, I had a lul in my writing mid-summer and needed something to boot me back into the swing of things and this did the job perfectly. Cook it just fantastic at pacing and storytelling and characters and it was inspiration when I needed it.

World War Z by Max Brooks. I'm cheating again. I read this book last year but I'm including it on this list simply because of how often I think about it--including when I started writing this post. This book is wild. It affected me in a way that books rarely, if ever, do. Maybe it's because I don't generally read horror or thriller, though this book didn't have the traditional trappings of either. It was actually a memoir. For two weeks I had nightmares of the zombie apocolypse. Now, you may think that's silly. But it's not. Not when you wake up sweating, hyperventilating, worried that all of your family has been eaten and that you're on the run with the what's left of humanity and you consider having bars installed on the windows of your house but then realize that wouldn't help because oh dear heaven why did I read that book I'm freaking out now.

Obviously these aren't all the books I read this year, but they are the ones I reflect on the most, and the ones I feel influenced my own writing. I'll come back and add one or two more if I think of any.

Noms and Editing

2010-12-18T08:13:00.000-08:00

I'm planning a major offensive on the baking front for Christmas Eve. I'm making my specialty giant Chocolate Chip cookies (I can only make six on a pan because the dough balls are a quarter cup) for the entire family as part of their Christmas presents--that's at least sixty cookies. And I'm making two pans of Michele's family's super-secret-recipe sweet rolls for Christmas morning breakfast. It doesn't sound like much. But it is. It's gonna be a wild time.

I have a firm due date for my next edit set as January 10th. Originally I thought "well that's gonna be a walk in the park." Then the last couple days I've been sizing up the holiday season and figuring out just how much free time I'm (not) gonna have. My brother moves to Saudi Arabia in January. One friend is in from San Francisco, another on leave from National Guard training, yet another in from DC. I have a wedding to go to this afternoon and I only get half a day off work each for Christmas and New Years because they fall on Saturdays. So I won't be able to coast through the rest of the edit at a leisurely pace like I planned but will have to pack it into the free time I find. Which is what everyone has to do. Makes me miss college and the 15 hours of free time I had every day.

Seeing so many people over the next few weeks I'm going to go for a record for using the words "my agent" as often as possible. It shouldn't be hard and I see most of my old high school friends infrequently enough that they won't want to stab me in the neck with a pencil after the thousandth time I've told them about my writing. Good times.

My in-laws were in town a couple weeks ago and got me an early Christmas present: A pizza stone. Ok, they got me several early Christmas presents, but the pizza stone is what I'm going to talk about now. I've used it to make four pizzas so far and I think I finally found a pizza dough recipe I like. It can be stretched and pulled and turns out nice and thin like I like it. I haven't gotten to the point of tossing the dough yet--though I want to some day. And I still can't quite stretch a perfect circle. It turns out as more of a derpy oval. With practice I will succeed. I bought enough mozzarella and pepperoni at Costco yesterday to cover fifty pizzas and stored it in the freezer so I want to make a couple of pizzas every week for... well, a while.

I have a goal to start posting pictures of my pizza and cookies and rolls and breads but then I finish making them and eat them because they look yummy and no photographic evidence is left behind. I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually, though. I think Michele took a picture of those sweet rolls last week. I'll have to dig it up.

I Have an Agent

2010-11-22T09:44:00.001-08:00

I think I can officially say that now. I am pleased to say that Caitlin Blasdell of Liza Dawson Associates has taken me on as a client for Promise of Blood.

I'm still kind of reeling from it. My brain is a little foggy. I've been wandering around the house the last few days, doing some reading here and there and being generally useless until my mental reboot is finished.

The biggest thing I keep reminding myself is that this is just the first step on the long road to having my first book on the shelves. There are still places where things could go wrong and there's still a whole lot of work to do. But I'm finally on the road.

I think the biggest shock to me so far was having a professional read my book and say "this can sell." Well. 'Shock' is a bad word for it. More like, 'blossoming of joy that leaves me slightly off-kilter for the next week.' I've always felt pretty good that this moment would come. After Butcher failed to go anywhere, though, I think I dialed down my expectations to the point that I wouldn't be completely destroyed if Promise didn't either. But it is. And this makes me happy. Yay.

One thing in particular comes to mind. When I was talking to agents last week it hit me that I was discussing magic and gods and demons, etc. not just with a fellow aspiring writer or gamer friend, but with someone who was going to help me launch my career. It made me feel so much better about all those times I was asked what my book was about and I felt awkward telling them because I knew they weren't interested fantasy.

Once my book is out and people ask me what it's about I'm going to have to get over my shyness. Then again, when that happens I'll be a published author and not just some kid writing a book.

Obsolete

2010-11-16T13:55:00.000-08:00

My BF list of agents to query is obsolete. Is that even the right word? I'm not trying to say that it is a passe technology, but rather that it is not needed anymore. Let's go with obsolete.

I gotta admit, it makes me a little sad. I spent hours and hours on that thing and two weeks later I don't need it anymore. Oh well. I'll store it in a little folder somewhere at the back of my hard drive, just in case a friend needs it or, heaven forbid, I need it again someday.

It's sad, but it's not a bad thing. :-)

I have no official news yet, as I really don't want to jump the gun. I'm not certain of etiquette, and I'm a little superstitious on top of things, so no announcement. In fact, I really shouldn't say a damn thing at all for another week. But I can't shut up. I'm too excited.

Things have been flying by. Submitting to agents, and then afterwords to editors, is a waiting game. It might be weeks before you get your first rejection, months before your first request for a partial.

I had four requested fulls twelve days into the waiting period.

This blew me away. I did not at all expect this kind of response. It baffled me, frankly. I'm confident my stuff is good. What writer isn't? I enjoy it. My snobby wife enjoys it. My beta-readers enjoy it. None of this means that a professional will find it mildly sell-able.

Yet some of them do.

The next several months are going to be very exciting. That's all I can say now. I have a pretty good idea of how they will go. I think. I am new to all of this. Then again, I had that same "pretty good idea" about the next couple of months two weeks ago. That's changed significantly.

I'm rambling now. I have no coherent thoughts. I will have to organize them properly in say, two weeks.

All of this excitement means that I'm not doing much cooking. I'm very busy. I barely have time to throw things in the bread maker. Luckily Michele has been taking over almost all of the evening meals (though she says my duties still include bread and cookies). I'm fine with this. She is turning into a very good cook. Her peanut chicken tastes like it comes from a Chinese place. Mmmm.

Dear Breadmaker

2010-11-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

There have been too many posts lately about writing and not enough about victuals. So here's a love letter to my new breadmaker.

Dear Cuisinart Automatic Breadmaker,

You've only been in my life for about five weeks, but it feels like a hundred years. I never imagined that our friendship would blossom so. You make an incredible variety of breads; banana nut bread, from the old bananas I've collected in the freezer over the last eight months; lemon poppy seed, which I never had the courage to try until you entered my home; French bread, which is pretty much just water and flour and yeast and comes out a little hard but I forgive you anyway because it's probably my fault because my yeast is a little old; Italian bread, which is way better than the French bread but damn it I can't seem to keep the top of the loaf from falling; zucchini bread that I make from fresh zucchini from my parents' garden. You even create wonderful pizza dough--though it comes out a little bit bland. I'll have to adjust the recipe.

I feel like I want to try new things with you. There's a date nut loaf in your recipe book, as well as pumpkin bread. It's certainly the season for the latter. Your loaves make wonderful gifts to friends and family--like a warm little bundle of joy fresh from the hospital, ready to be devoured.

I have to admit it, I'm in love with Costco even more after getting you. Costco is full of such beautiful and wonderful things, and you're the best quality breadmaker on the market for such a low price. I digress; this letter is to you, not Costco.

I love you, breadmaker. There, I said it. Don't worry about my wife. She knows. She approves of what we do. I want the world to know of our love. We made sweet zucchini bread last night. Let's make it again tonight. Won't it be wonderful?

Love,

Brian

Holy Queries, Batman!

2010-11-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

I've continued making my way through my BF list of agents the last two days. I've produced a satisfactory synopsis and let me tell you it was so much easier this time around. One might even say that I'm a better, more mature writer. Or one might say that I did far more research (that is, browsing agent blogs) before I wrote this one. Take your pick. Either way, it's finished, and I'm getting on with my queries.

I've been working on the printed queries today. I am relieved, after finishing just one so far, that 80% of the agencies out there have moved from snail mail to email query. It's going to save me a ton of money, for one. Time, for another. Wrestling with a crappy $60 printer whose paper feeder and catcher arms were both broken off by one's wife is a real pain in the rumpus.

One of the things I watch for when I read agent blogs is how other people tend to go about their queries. Weronika Janczuk, a lit agent with D4EO, actually asked this question on her blog recently. I went through the answers and had one of those "Oh. You guys actually have a strategy" moments. It had never occurred to me to send out a batch of six queries and wait for answers, and then tweak my query and send out another batch. I produced what I think is a pretty good query letter and I've spent weeks scouring the internet for agents I think might be interested and now I'm sending them out. To everyone on my list.

I definitely see the merit in sending out a few at a time, tweaking, and then sending out more. But...but... I just don't have the patience. I gotta be honest. Further, I didn't go through my list and pick out my top five or ten. I took everyone out there who might be interested in heroic fantasy and put them on my list without further ranking. However, as I have been sending out the actual queries I've spent maybe twenty minutes on each agent, surfing the web and lurking all the author help sites and discovering what I can about that agent. If I find that agency is particularly well thought of--or the opposite--I make a note of it. If I find that agent is only mildly interested in commercial lit, then I make a note that they won't likely be interested in my book. Yet if they take an e-query, then what the hell I'm gonna query them anyway.

So that list of my top 5-10 agents is going to come about AFTER the queries have been sent out. This sounds kinda stupid when I say it that way, but since I'm not being choosy about who I send my queries, this isn't really a problem. This list WILL be nice, however, if I some day get a nibble from a publishing house before I do an agent.

The Queries Must Go Out

2010-11-02T08:58:00.001-07:00

I've spent a lot of time online the last two weeks reading agency websites and creating a spreadsheet with all the agencies and particular agents that might be interested in Promise of Blood. I started sending out queries yesterday. In fact, I got my first rejection as I wrote this paragraph. Quick turnaround time on that.

So far I've sent out 21 queries. My list of agents to query: 67. I started with all the easy ones; that is, the ones that ask for a simple query letter and maybe the first chapter. I'm leaving the ones that ask for a one page synopsis (about half of them) until the end because I absolutely dread having to write that synopsis. I remember when I sent out queries for Butcher I spent days and days on the synopsis and still felt like it was stilted, listing, and totally useless in getting across the story of the book. There's just so much going on in a 150K word novel. How do I shrink it to 1 page?

Now, yes, my query letter includes a two paragraph blurb for the book. Of course. So you might ask, how is that any easier than a page? Well I'll tell you. It's easier because I can just sketch over the main storylines and the coolest concept and BOOM I'm done. When it comes to a full page things are different. Characters need to be introduced, concepts need to be explained, and twists revealed. You need to touch upon everything important that happens in 150K words all while making it coherent and interesting and you have what, 500 words to do it in?

Anyway. I'm interested to see how this goes over the next couple of months. Agency responce times are anywhere from one day to four months. Many of the agencies only respond if they are interested in hearing more from you. Most will send you a standard rejection.

It's going to be important to me not to let rejections get me down. I mentioned in the last post that my chances of being asked even for a partial are around 1 in every 200, give or take. If I keep getting more and more rejections I'm in the very real danger of getting depressed and discouraged. I can't let this happen. During this time I'm going to do a couple of subsequent edits on Promise and I'll also be moving back for my rewrite of Drums. This means I have lots of work to do and can't afford to get depressed.

I have often felt that I went about Butcher in the wrong way. I submitted to a single editor and only sent out maybe seven agent queries. The response I got from that editor was that he was not interested--there were a few flaws in my storytelling but that I was a very good writer and to keep at it and that another editor might actually like the book enough to buy it. Of course, instead of being energized and excited I fell off of my writing for half a year or more. I didn't send out any further queries or submit the manuscript to other editors. I just let it gather dust, wallowing in my video games.

Not gonna happen this time. I hope. I know the book is good. I know my writing is quality. I just have to keep at it until I get an agent. And if that never happens, I have to keep at my writing to make it better.

World Fantasy

2010-10-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

I wrapped up my World Fantasy experience at about 11PM last night and spent the two and a half hour drive home digesting my experience. It's going down slow, and I suspect I'll still be thinking about it in a week.

Things I learned from WF:

1. I am not good at talking to strangers.

The attendees were wonderful, friendly, and by all reports very approachable. Despite that, it took me two full days to work up to talking to just a handful of people. The conversations I did have were short and rather blah from my end. I don't think I made a bad impression, but I didn't make a terribly memorable one either. I did get some face time and I did receive a couple of invitations to send in my work.

2. Publishing is changing.

This was alluded to in just about every panel I went to. E-books, the internet, greater clamor for visual, interactive media above the written word. All of these things are killing the paperback. I have the feeling that much of the old guard is unwilling or unable to keep up with these changes. The younger publishers are far more receptive to change yet I feel like they too are nervous about how this will affect their future. Rightfully so.

3. Fantasy is still viable.

This stuff still sells. The genre is evolving. Sword and sorcery and epic/high fantasy are in many ways melding together. I've heard this referred to (and called it myself) heroic fantasy. Steven Erikson and Joe Abercrombie are examples of this.

4. I'm really young.

I don't know what the average age was at WF, but I was far, far below it. I may be an old man with my arthritis and curmudgetude but biologically I'm only 24. I talked to countless men and women in their 40s and 50s there with their writing groups or hanging around trying to pitch books. Which brings me to the next thing:

5. I am not unique.

This was very daunting, and I think it added to my inability to approach people. There were hundreds of wanna-be authors there, each one with their own stories and ideas, many with a finished book--or several. They buzzed around the editors and agents like moths around a flame. How am I supposed to stand out in that crowd? Kathy Hague, an editor at Tor, came up to me at the Tor party and introduced herself. It was very kind of her. She probably felt sorry for me standing there by myself.

I saw this post from Jennifer Jackson recently. It's her log of queries responded to, compared to partials/manuscripts she's requested in the last month. That's 838 queries. She asked to see 4 partials. That's 1 in every 210. And it's not as if she's offering to represent that one. She's simply asking to see more of the book. Every agent will have different numbers here. But still. Talk about daunting.

For a moment, let's use these numbers as a guide. Now, I've read slush piles. They are full--and I mean FULL--of unreadable garbage. I'm a snob, and I'm overconfident, so I'll say that my stuff, even my query letter, is easily better than 90% of what an agent will see in their inbox. If that is indeed the case, I'm still competing with 83 other halfway decent queries each month. Only one in twenty of those will be asked for partials.

A few other thoughts from WF:

I need to get in touch with the industry. I spent the last two hours finding agent and editor blogs and subscribing to them, and rearranging my Google feed so that I'll see blog updates every day. I need to know what these people are thinking and doing and buying and writing.

I need to read more. I've had this self-imposed rule for about 2 years now that I don't read when I'm working on a big project. It tends to ruin my goals and take over my life and then I find cool concepts and ideas that I want to assimilate in my own books even though I'm already half way done and dear lord not another partial edit. I have to get over that. I should be reading a book a week, at least.

Finally, There are so many cool ideas out there. So many interesting stories and powerful reads. Some people write because they have a deep-set muse that makes them want to create at odd hours of the night. I write because I want to support my family with it someday. That's been my pragmatic approach to things all along, but I realized something this weekend: I write because I want to be part of of this collective consciousness of creativity. I don't want to be just a reader--I want to be a colleague. I want to be a professional in this field.

Promise of Blood

2010-10-27T19:14:00.001-07:00

The book is done. Last week, actually. I didn't manage my far-fetched goal of 3K words a day for ten days. But isn't there a saying that goals are meant to be broken? I may have that wrong.

Right.

It has a real title now, too. Promise of Blood.

It came in at just over 150,000 words. For those of you wondering, that's about 271 pages, single-spaced, in Word.

The book itself spent about a year in development. A few false starts. 50K+ words tossed in the recycling bin because the plot/story/characters or what-have-you weren't working. Many nights spent up late muttering to myself about who does what and how this conflict causes that resolution. Once I had the first 10K words written it sat on a shelf for about a month of consideration. Then I wrote the rest in five months.

Considering that Butcher took me four years of development with about 200K worth of false starts, I think this marks a great improvement in my ability to plan and follow through. Back in May, right after Michele and I moved into a new place I said to myself: Brian, you have a wife. You have three fuzzy children to care for and kibbles to buy with which to feed them. If you aren't going to take this whole 'wanna be a career novelist' thing seriously you really need to figure out a career.

Well to hell with that.

So I wrote about 8K a week for 5 months (minus a 3 week hiatus for illness) and finished this dang thing to prove to myself that I could.

As for World Fantasy: For a while I had it in my head that I was going to World Fantasy to sell a book. This is false. I'm going to World Fantasy to catch up on the market. I'm going to meet people and put faces to names and enjoy myself and talk to agents and editors to find out what people are looking for and maybe, just maybe, pitch my book to a few of them if the atmosphere seems right.

When I get back I'm ready to begin the grunt work of trying to sell a manuscript. I've gone through every agent that accepts fantasy queries on Agentquery.com and weeded out the ones that are only looking for paranormal romance and urban fantasy. I have a solid list of 37 agencies with agents looking for epic fantasy all set up in a pretty little spreadsheet that will let me keep track of who I've queries and when and how long I expect to wait before hearing back from them.

As for the novel: One probably should not be submitting queries a week and a half after writing the last word. One probably should not blog about it, on the off chance an agent googles his name and finds his blog and discovers the query went out before the umpteenth edit. However. I'm ignoring my own advice for three reasons; 1) I have great confidence in my abilities as a writer. 2) I have been FLYING through edits the last week. I know enough now that there will be no major plot line changes. The down time between queries and any possible positive response will be quite long enough to go through several thorough edits, as well as shoot it to my beta-readers and get it back. And 3) any agent that bothers to google my name was intrigued enough with my query that he/she will still be willing to look at my first three chapters despite my over-confident attitude. I hope.

That being said, I have a couple of contacts that might actually get my whole novel in front of an agent or editor. Those shipments will not go off for a couple of weeks, until I've looked at what my beta readers have to say.

So off to World Fantasy tomorrow. Wish me luck. And Jamie, thanks for the advice. It's really given me a boost the last week as I gear up for this thing. I really had no strategy before. I have one now.

Catching Up

2010-10-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

I am very, very far behind. According to my original schedule I was to have MW done by now. October was meant to be for editing Butcher once and rewriting the last third of Drums, as well as going over MW two or three times.

Unfortunately I'm still on MW. I'm at about 122K right now, with about half of the third viewpoint finished. That means I have maybe 25-35K left to go.

World Fantasy is in just 25 days.

It's time to hustle the bustle.

My current goal is to write 3K words a day for the next 10 days and see where I'm at. Everything is plotted and planned. There should be few hangups. This will give me 15 days to edit it to a point at which I'm satisfied with sending it to an editor.

It might also give me some time to work on Drums. Drums is only about 90K all said and done, so it's not overly ambitious to do some reworking before World Fantasy. I'm hoping to get to that because I really want to have three books--ready to be mailed out--to pitch over that weekend.

This is all assuming that an editor is interested in one or more of them. I have to admit, I'm nervous.

When I pitched to Moshe Feder back at the Denver Worldcon, I felt pretty good going in. Moshe is Brandon's editor at Tor, and Brandon had talked him up about me in the past. We'd also met at Worldcon 2006 in LA, however briefly. Things went smoothly, even though he eventually rejected the book itself.

I'm not going to have any base to work from at this con. A couple of my friends will be there, people who are a little more familiar with the publishing world and might give me a couple of pointers. However, I have the feeling I'll be flying solo for the most part. I honestly have a hard time approaching people. I get nervous, a little shaky, my thoughts whirl and my tongue boggles the words. Once I get in a conversation things tend to smooth out. It's the getting there that, ahem, gets me.

My second problem is remembering. When you go to a con with the intent of selling a book, you need to read up on editors and agents and who is doing what with which publishing house. This is all well and good if you can remember. See, we're talking about the guy who gets a kick out of his own plot twists and turns because he forgot they were there in the first place. I'm going to have difficulties keeping names straight, even if I do my homework properly.

I'm also out of touch. I honestly don't do a lot of reading these days. Dust of Dreams is still sitting on my bookshelf, untouched, because I told myself I wouldn't open it until MW was finished. I tore into the Black Company a month or two ago (I love my signed trade paperback of Chronicles), and I fell in love with Joe Abercrombie during the early summer.

This presents the problem of not really knowing what's being published, who the new names are, and how they compare to my own books. I really should have been considering this earlier, like, you know, this year... but I'm gonna throw up all the old excuses: family, job, friends, etc.

So in addition to being nervous about my pitches, I'm also worried about not being able to carry on an intelligent conversation with an editor or agent. I'm long past the days of being able to say, "I'm in Brandon Sanderson's writing class and I wrote a book."

Pepperoni Bread

2010-09-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

I just washed the flour of my hands from making pepperoni bread and I'm watching the dogs out of the corner of my eye to keep them from nabbing a bite of dough. This has happened before, and we almost lost a dog in a terrible and tragic dog flushing itself down the toilet "accident." Such are the dangers of living in a tiny house.

I have a wonderful French bread recipe that my sister gave me a few years back that I use to make a number of very tasty things. I figured out the cost of the making this bread at one point and it came to something like 35 cents a loaf. Very cheap, especially for starving college students. Problem was, adding pepperoni and cheese increased the price of a loaf by over ten fold so whenever I did make pepperoni bread I was very stingy. It was still quite good, but it had really just had the taste rather than the full effect.

I decided to change that, and this time added about 1.5 cups of cheese and thirty or so piece of pepperoni to each loaf and I'm really looking forward to the results. They're big and fat and they're rising on the counter while the oven preheats as I type.

One of these days I'm going to get a camera and start posting pictures of my culinary escapades. One of these days...

nom.

A Disruption of Plans

2010-08-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

The last three weeks mark the longest period of writing inactivity I've had since May. Earlier this month I got hit with a bad head cold. Now, before you shrug your shoulders and say, 'oh, it happens to everyone, you just get through it,' let me ask you if you have any friends or relatives that, when they get sick, you don't see them for two weeks? I mean, they sequester themselves completely; they cut off all contact with the outside world and spend the whole time in bed; that when you do see them, they look so insanely miserably you'd think they got hit by a truck while falling out of a tree and then stampeded by buffalo and you decide to avoid them until there's no possibility you could get the same thing?

Yeah, I'm one of those people.

My unwillingness to take any time off work probably lengthened my illness, but I was actually feeling quite good a week ago, back up to about 95%, when I woke up with chills and headaches and a cough. So I've spent the last week trying to get through bronchitis too.

I have a pretty sturdy inability to think when I'm sick, so absolutely no writing has been done. A week ago Sunday I spent about forty-five minutes brainstorming. That was the extent of that. So my goals of being done with the current project by mid-September have been pushed back.

I think I can still hit the beginning of October, which puts me with plenty of time for edits before World Fantasy. Cthulhu willing, I'll be able to work on edits for Butcher and Drums so that I feel good about pitching them. I'd love to have three books to pitch at World Fantasy.

This being said, I can't forget to do my homework. A couple months ago Dan was reminding me that I need to do my homework before I go so that I know which editors at what publishing houses I'm going to want to meet. This is very important for someone hitting the con circuit with design to sell. It makes it less of a crap shoot and gives me clear goals for the weekend.

Blaaaarrg; Or, Why I Don't Eat Cheap Hot Dogs

2010-08-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

Michele was craving hot dogs the other day. I wasn't, so I made the short-sighted mistake of getting the cheapest chicken-and-pork Sugardale hot dogs that the convenience store was carrying. They were two-for-one and I thought, well, I'll make them for friends sometime so I might as well get two. Oh Lord.

I'd hate to make a generalization that hot dogs are nasty, god-forsaken amalgamations of road kill and petroleum by-product because not all of them are. There are some really good ones out there. I prefer all-beef franks, or polish dogs if I can get a decent one (the ones at the Costco counter are not). My favorite are from J-Dawgs in Provo. The quality dog, beef or polish, combined with their signature sauce is just delectable.

I happen to have a bottle of that sauce that Michele brought home for me from Utah a couple months ago, so this afternoon when I was hungry I thought, well, I'll have a hot dog. Slathered in J-Dawgs sauce it can't be that bad. Can it?

Yes. Yes it can.

Ginger Ale 2.0

2010-08-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

I took on my second batch of ginger ale yesterday. I made a number of small changes to the recipe. I wanted to lose the heavy yeast taste/smell and I wanted a better ginger flavor.

I started with cool tap water instead of refrigerated filtered this time.

I went with more ginger, about 2 Tbsp moderately packed, rather than 1.5 Tbsp lightly packed. I really have no idea how you're supposed to measure grated ginger. I'm at the middle of root now and there's a lot of that stringy stuff in it. I read somewhere that you can avoid that by freezing it first. Maybe next time.

I did less yeast this time, maybe a pinch or two under 1/4 tsp.

I also increased the fermentation (length at room temp) time from about 18 hours to about 24.

I was going to go 30 hours, but the bottle was very firm so I went ahead and gave it a try. I wanted to avoid the fountain that I had last time, but this might be where I went wrong. I loosened the cap just enough to let a little gas escape and kept twisting it tight whenever it was about to gush over. This took about five minutes. I poured a glass over ice and discovered that I'd lost most of my carbonation. Way to go, Brian.

The good news with this one is that I got a more desirable ginger taste and I don't taste/smell yeast. The ginger has significantly more kick, so I'm hoping with a successful opening that I will have the product I'm aiming for.

Write What You (Can Imagine You) Know

2010-08-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

I chuckle to myself when I hear someone say "write what you know." It's pretty standard writing advice in those classes you take in high school and college. The theory behind it is that writing what you know will create the most authentic, fully realized experience for the reader. It's a wonderful theory. Many writers follow it. I do as much as I can, but it's impossible to stick to. Settings are easy for anyone, especially in nature. Anyone can travel. Cultures are far more difficult, require far more research and attention or, if you're writing fantasy, setup and background. Time period authenticity is very tough.

I try to create a believable world that the readers can relate to. Most fantasy is set in a medieval world, a time period both recognizable and distant, something murky enough to let the imagination run free. I'm writing a fantasy set in a fictional 1800's-Europe-type world filled with muskets and sorcerers and kings and revolutionaries. I don't know that. I'd be kidding myself if I thought I did. Set aside the sorcerers. I have done a lot of research on the time period. When I'm working I have a number of articles tabbed in Firefox from wikipedia or other sites that will give me relevant information. I have stacks of books about the life during those times, about the weapon developments and the politics and the clothes and the monetary systems.

But I really don't know it. I've read Les Mes a dozen times, but I still don't actually know what it's like to have musketballs thump into the bed I'm using as a barricade, or carry a wounded man through the sewers under Paris. No one does. At least no one living, that is.

In fantasy or science fiction you're writing things that were never real in the first place. Revolutionary Paris was real. I can read first-hand accounts, put myself into the place of those people and try to create an authentic air. When a sorcerer puts on his gloves, warded to keep the Else from burning his hands, and plucks at the fibers of reality to destroy a city then, um, I'm all on my own.

This is a blessing and a bane. The blessing is that I won't have a snobby historian telling me that I'm using the wrong kind of sorcerer for the time period I'm portraying. The bane is I have nothing to start with--no historical basis or first-hand accounts. All I have is the depths of my imagination.

So I make it up.

Ginger Ale 1.0

2010-08-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

I made my first 2 liter of ginger-ale yesterday. I used this recipe, which does not use soda extract, but instead uses fresh grated ginger and lemon juice. I pulled the result from the basement about six hours earlier than suggested because the sides of the pop bottle were already hard. I chilled for about three hours in the fridge (which was not long enough). I opened the bottle slowly, cautiously... nothing happened. I went to pick it up, squeezing the sides in the process, and the bastard fountained all over the cupboard. I think I lost about two cups worth.

I strained the ginger root out of the first taste test. My initial reaction was too yeasty, not enough carbonation. The flavor is good. I like the lemon, and the ginger seems strong enough. I tried the next cup without straining. I actually like the little grated bits of ginger root. They're crunchy, and not as spicy as fresh ginger. In addition, wikipedia tells me that ginger may help reduce arthritis pain.

I'm kind of excited to try making more pop. I haven't been to a brewery supply store yet to look for soda extracts. Austin at BattleAxe Brewing pointed me to some area supply stores, so I'll be checking those out soon. I hesitate to order extract offline until I know what prices I should be looking for, and I've done at least enough batches to tell me I'm going to enjoy doing this more in the future. I still have plenty of ginger, though, so I'll try more of that this week.