One Thousand And One Parsecs

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

On a stormy night off the coast of Marseilles, a local fishing trawler recovers a man with a gunshot wound to the head.  The local doctor patches him up, but when he recovers, he has no knowledge of his past life.  Even his name is a mystery.

Fortunately, he has a clue to help him get started: a microfilm surgically implanted in his hip containing an account number for a bank in Switzerland.

When he arrives in Switzerland, he finds that the account contains millions of dollars, as well as a name: Treadstone 71.  Before leaving the bank, however, a squad of hitmen attack and nearly kill him, for no reason that he can possibly understand.

On the run from people he doesn’t know for things he doesn’t remember, Jason Bourne finds himself in a struggle, not only for his life, but to find his true identity.  But the answers, he fears, are much, much darker than he can possibly accept.

Okay, to start things off, let me say that this book is NOTHING like the movie.  NOT AT ALL.  The two are completely separate stories.  The beginnings of both are similar, with the whole amnesia thing and the bank account number implanted in his hip, but after Jason leaves Marseilles, everything gets different.  EVERYTHING.

For that reason, it’s difficult to say which is better, because they both try to do very different things.  The movie is more about the action and suspense; the book is more about the intrigue and character development.  Both succeed quite well at what they respectively set out to do.

That said, I enjoyed the book at least as much, if not more than the move.  Ludlum’s writing is quite good, and he paints an excellent picture of both the exotic European setting and the complex psychological portrait of his main character.  Unlike Crichton, whose characters often fall flat, Ludlum does an excellent job creating characters who stand up on their own right.

The suspense lagged somewhat in the middle for me, when the details about Cain and Medusa came to light (that’s one thing I’ve got to say about Crichton–he’s a master of suspense), but it wasn’t enough to keep me from finishing.  The ending, however, was atrocious–not in a clumsy way, but in a too-many-loose-ends kind of way that meant that the story wouldn’t truly be resolved until the sequel.  I hate stories that do that, but oh well, what can you do?

Overall, though, the book was quite good–better than I expected.  I can see why Ludlum was such a successful writer: he created interesting, capable characters and put them in exotic, foreign settings to fight ruthless, evil villains in a desperate zero-sum struggle for survival.

Interesting characters + exotic setting + high stakes conflict + good writing = win.  Oh, and Bourne is way more awesome than Bond. Just sayin’.

Rock Canyon Writing for Charity

So a couple weeks ago, I heard of this for-charity writer’s conference going on in Sandy this weekend.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the full event, but I did go to the evening extravaganza with fellow writer and quarkie Jimmy.

The evening session was great!  There were some excellent performances by Divine Comedy and singer/songwriter Nancy Hanson, and a giant question/answer panel with such local writers as Shannon Hale, James Dashner, Sara Zarr, Brandon Mull, and Brandon Sanderson, among others.

My question for the panel was “with the way the market is changing, what advice do you have for new writers trying to break in right now?” Most of the answers were pretty standard fare, such as “don’t write for the market, write what you love,” “don’t let all the crazy speculation keep you from writing,” and, perhaps implied more than spoken, “no one really knows how things are changing; just keep writing.”

At the signing afterwards, though, I was hanging out with Brandon Sanderson, and he had some interesting things to say on the subject.  When asked about getting an agent, he said that new writers should follow the blogs of the agents to whom they want to submit and join the conversations going on there.

Let me just say that Brandon is better to his fans than practically any other authors I know–and that’s saying something, because I have  yet to meet an author in-person who wasn’t friendly and gracious.  Maybe it’s something about sf&f; the community tends to be really good to its own.

Anyway, even with all the fame he’s gained from the Wheel of Time (he’s basically Tor’s biggest superstar fantasy writer right now), Brandon is still very accessible and down-to-earth.  He makes a special effort to remember his fans, and greets them by name (or by some other tag if he can’t remember names) when he sees them.  One of the guys asked if he could take a picture of Brandon with a message to his son, and Brandon not only took the picture but posted it to his twitter pics.

Overall, the event was a good opportunity to rub shoulders with other authors and aspiring writers from the area–and in Utah, there is certainly no shortage of either one.  Chatted with Dan Wells and Rob, an old friend from the first 318 class I took at BYU, as well as others. Besides that, the money went to buy books for low-income kids across Utah–how can you not feel good about that?  Great event–I’m glad I could go.

T-minus 600 hours and counting

Haircut: check.
Clean clothes: check.
Bag lunch and dinner: check.
Chilled water bottles: check.
Directions to St George from Provo: check.
Interview questions: check.
iRiver 800 with sufficient recording space: check.
iRiver to USB cord: check.
Extra batteries: check.
Asus netbook: check.
2003 Buick LeSabre Custom: check.
4+ hours of ocremix and other music: check.
Copy of On My Way to Paradise to get signed: check.

Tomorrow I am going on a road trip to St George, Utah to interview bestselling author Dave Farland (aka Dave Wolverton) for Mormon Artist magazine.  Wish me luck!

New Background

My old blog background was starting to get old, so I decided to change it. What do you guys think of the new one? Is it too busy and distracting, or do you think it works?

The image, by the way, is of the Greater Carina Nebula, taken from NASA’s excellent Astronomy Picture of the Day website. You can find the original image here.

Cover Letter Fail

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I volunteer as a slushpile reader for The Leading Edge.  We see some pretty bad stuff, such as stories written entirely in one-line paragraphs, or self-proclaimed “short stories” over 80 pages and 30 chapters long, or hilariously awkward phrases like “the copious softness of her breasts.”

This, however, takes the cake.

It’s a cover letter from an author who submitted a story to us a few months ago that we rejected.  Can you tell?  In one and a half pages, I think he does just about everything that you’re not supposed to do. In fact, it was so bad that Chris, the head editor, wrote a special comment sheet critiquing just the cover letter.

Anyways, here’s it is (with names changed and/or completely removed):

Thanks for your very interesting critiques of “Shamelessly Amateur Story.”

It was perhaps too mysterious and weird. Since much of it went past your knowledgeable readers, I have to think it was too subtile. Or just not clear, something like that.

I, myself, may be a bit mysterious and weird.

This is a much clearer sort of story. It’s about an engineer on a starship, and it draws very strongly on my own experience. No, not on a starship. Smile.

I also do some scifi humor, which the best stories I could use as examples are under submission to others. Since statistics say they will puke on them, if you like scifi humor, you might tell me. (In the computer programmer’s world, to puke on something is only to say that you do not understand it. It does not mean someone is throwing up. I say, “I do not know what you want with ‘w/carrot/show’ ” and that does not mean anything is wrong with what you said, just that my program could not process it.

I do not think I can write a simple story. My work is full of twists and turns and implications. What I need to learn, I believe, is not how to write more simply, but how to write so that the simplest level of interpretation is accessible. I have a story in Rosebud this winter, and I don’t know how the editor looked at it, but I imagine he (Rodrick Clark) is smarter than the next Bear.

Why do I have to make it so complicated? I could write a blood and thunder story, and anyone could see it was pretty good. Well, that would make it easy if it was just about writing what you know. I have seen blood. But I do not want to write about negatives. I want to write stories about how good people are not about how bad they could be. Let me see if I can get to you with ‘Yet Another Shamelessly Amateur Story’ and maybe you can tell me something about positive writing froom this. Oh, and sure, I need to see a sample copy, so here is the $6 for that.

If your guidelines say anything unique, I would like to have them, and will refer to them. I do not think of anyone’s guidelines as really mandatory, but as ‘have an effin’ good reason’ to not follow. You might tell me not to touch you, but if a train is about to run you over. I will grab you and thrrow you off the tracks like a sack of sand. If I have a storyteller’s reason to blow off your guidelines, I will do that, too, but I will have to understand that I need to listen closely to the rules. It’s a little bit like grammar. But bad grammar is more easily forgiven.

Well, anyway. I would like you to look at this story, ‘Yet Another Shamelessly Amateur Story’ and I would like a review, or better, I would like you to buy it.

In any event, I want a sample copy, and here is the $6 for it.

Needless to say, “Yet Another Shamelessly Amateur Story” was rejected. Grammar this bad is NOT more easily forgiven, and though “Yet Another” may have been too subtile for us, we resent it when people treat us like bags of sand.

Most and least productive days

Man, I don’t know how it happened, but I did not get a word in in my novel today.  No, wait, I know how it happened: my schedule looked like a piece of moldy Swiss cheese.

First, there was work, then plasma, then a few hours of free time followed by an interview for an internship with the Utah County Democrats (which went extremely well–more later), then Leading Edge, and then Dr. Strangelove.

So yeah.  No writing, unfortunately.  Gotta work on the self discipline.

But as far as figuring out what the heck I’m going to do with the next 6 months to 1 year of my life, today was remarkably productive.  I recently applied for a paid internship with the Utah County Democrats and the interview was today.  I think it went really well, too–the board members seemed quite impressed.  I was dressed up, showed up early, and answered every question by pointing to something specific from my work or volunteer experience.  Finally, a job that I’m actually qualified for!

Honestly, when I went, in, I wasn’t too sure if this was something I was interested in doing.  I didn’t have a very positive experience in DC with the internship, and the back and forth of partisan politics really grates on me.  However, there seems to be a big difference between national politics and local politics–local stuff seems much more down to earth, with less of the rhetoric and bickering.  A lot more hands-on, grassroots kind of stuff, without the constant abstractions or the hyperfocus on career priorities that turned me off so much to Washington.

Politically, I’m currently an independent, leaning more to the right.  Surprisingly, that seems to put me in good company with the Utah County Democrats.  One of the guys on the board described them as center / right of center–basically, a moderating influence in the face of right wing nutcases like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh that are so deplorably common out here.

The internship pays a $2,000 stipend for 4 months of work: 10 hours per week at first, moving up to 20 hours per week closer to November.  For this part of the country, that’s decent money.  Plus, if the candidate I work for gets elected, it may open job opportunities in Salt Lake City.

The catch?  That I’ll no longer be able to be a political independent–that I’ll be picking sides, in such a way that the other side may never consider me credible again.  At least, that’s how it works in DC: there’s Team Republican and Team Democrat, and if you work for any organization even loosely affiliated with one of the teams, no-one on the other side will ever have anything to do with you.

But…then again, that may not be so bad.  I don’t agree with everything the national Democratic Party stands for, but neither do the Utah Valley Democrats.  In fact, the Democrats here mirror my political views almost perfectly.  Plus, I suppose it’s easier to change things once you’re on the inside.

I don’t know.  I’ll definitely have to think about it.

So yeah, as unproductive as things were writing-wise, they were actually quite productive in other ways that mattered.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next couple weeks; I sense more than a few major decisions coming up (gah!).

New computer!

So about a year ago, I blogged about my dream computer, with dual monitors, a nice comfy chair, and…well, that was it.  What can I say?  I’m easy to please.

Well, now that I’m graduated from BYU and (theoretically) no longer have access to BYU’s computers, I decided to go ahead and build my dream machine.

I got a lot of help picking out parts from my friend Cognoscente, who is a pirate par excellence.  My goal was to be as economical as possible while still picking out parts that are going to last for a long time.  I bought virtually everything from newegg.com, except for the mouse and keyboard which I picked up for $5 each from the BYU surplus sale (I’ll probably pick up a second monitor from them, eventually).

Anyway, here are the specs:

CPU–Intel i3-530 (2.93 GHz, 4 MB cache) ($114.99)
Mobo–Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 (USB 3.0) ($119.99)
HDD–Western Digital 1TB drive ($69.99)
RAM–A-DATA DDR3 2 x 2GB ($98.99)
Video Card–Zotac 9800 GT 512 MB x2 DVI ($89.99)
PSU–Corsair CMPSU-450VX 450 W ($69.99)
Optical Drive–ASUS 2 MB cache DVD burner ($21.99)
Case–Rosewill Blackbone ($39.99)
Monitor–ASUS 22″ widescreen 1680 x 1050 ($169.99)
Total Price (including s&h, not including rebates): $824.05

I ordered the parts on Memorial day, and guess what? Everything but the video card showed up this morning–and the video card is scheduled to come tomorrow!

So this weekend, after I find a desk somewhere (either from DI or listed free on craigslist), I’m going to get together with Cognoscente and put together this beast.

So yeah, I’m totally geeking out about this new computer. It’s going to be sweeeet once it’s set up–I can hardly wait!

I’m also hoping it will help me write more. Right now, my only machine is my netbook, which is extremely portable and useful for travel, but not very good as a primary machine. It can get tiresome to write on a 10″ screen all day.

So yeah, I totally know what I’m doing this weekend. It’s going to be AWESOME

Old About page

Well, now that I’m graduated and can no longer say that I’m a BYU student, it’s time to write a new About page for this blog. Before I do that, though, here’s the old page, in case you want to read it one last time.

About Me

Who am I?

I am an oldest son, an annoying older brother.  I have three beautiful sisters and an amazing mother and father, all of whom I love very much.

I am a believing, practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have a deep belief in God and an abiding faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior and Redeemer.  I’m certainly not perfect–far from it!–but I try my best to love, serve, listen, and appreciate the people in my life, friends and otherwise.

I am a senior at Brigham Young University, studying Arabic, political science, the modern Middle East, and English.  My academic interests don’t stop there, however.  I also love history, astronomy, linguistics, international relations, philosophy, economics, psychology…basically, I love learning.

I love writing, especially science fiction.  I fell in love with the genre as a young boy, when I read A Wrinkle in Time and saw Star Wars episode IV: A New Hope.  Those works triggered my inner creativity, and I have been writing SF&F continuously ever since.  I’ve never been able to stop.

I’m a writer, aspiring to become an author.  I’m not relying on talent alone to reach that goal, though.  I’ve been working hard on my craft since 2007, trying to get my writing up to a professional level while researching the publishing industry.  In that time, I’ve written three unpublished novels and had one short story published with Leading Edge.

I would like nothing more than to be a professional, full-time fiction writer.  I’m not there yet, but I’m on my way.

Contact

If you would like to contact me for any reason, I can be reached at the following email (despammed): joseph dot vasicek at gmail dot com.

You can also find me on twitter and on facebook.

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