Joe Vasicek

Character Interview: Master Sergeant Roman Andrei Krikoryan

So I recently heard about a really interesting blogfest, where the goal is to blog about the characters in your story, as well as have a little fun with flash fiction. The prizes look pretty good, too: a couple of free books and a manuscript critique, from a couple of up-and-coming editors.

Not bad…but the 250 word limit on the character interview seemed a little too restrictive. The idea really caught my imagination, though, so I decided to go ahead and do it for the main character of the book I’m writing now: Stars of Blood and Glory.

It was really fun! Stuff like this can be great for working out different aspects of your character. I already knew most of this stuff about Roman, but the exercise helped to solidify it.

And so, without further ado: enjoy!

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Hello, and welcome! I’m here on the Tajji Flame with Master Sergeant Roman Andrei Krikoryan, one of the Tajji mercenaries in Bringing Stella Home and a major character in the sequel, Stars of Blood and Glory. How are you doing today, Roman?

How do you do, my friend.

Very well, thank you. Let’s get started shall we? First question: What is your biggest vulnerability? Do others know this or is it a secret?

What is my vulnerability? This is strange question to be asking a mercenary. Why do you wish to know? <narrows eye>

Um, it’s not meant to be intrusive, more just as ah, um…well, what would you say is your biggest emotional vulnerability?

“Emotional vulnerability”? Look at me. I am not a man anymore, but a cyborg; what “emotions” I still feel, they are distant and weak. Rare pleasures, like sweet, unbidden memories.

I tell this to the doctor every time at check up, but she does not believe me. She is still young, and wishes to believe that there is some humanity left in me. Who knows? Perhaps she is right. But cyborgs do not die, my friend: their humanity fades until they are a ghost within a machine.

I have wandered the stars for over seventy standard years; I have seen my homeworld conquered not once, but twice. I have killed many men, I have slept with many whores, I have watched my old friends die, and had other friends watch me, thinking I was dead. I am old–too old. And yet cyborgs do not die: they fade.

So if you consider this as “emotional vulnerability,” then this is mine: to be alive, and yet not truly living. And it is no secret. I am a man of very few secrets.

What do people believe about you that is false?

Many things, some more false than others. You cannot be soldier for as long as I without learning how to cultivate a certain, how do I say? Persona. My men, they see the side of me that is strong–and it is a true side, for in battle, it is impossible to live a lie. But the side that they do not see, that is the pain–the memories, the weariness, the silent longing. It is dull now, but it is still there, even if I do not show it.

And so, if there is something that people believe about me that is false, it is that I feel no pain. I have always felt pain, until even before the rebellion was lost. It is way of life for me now. When the pain finally stops, then I will know that I am no longer human.

What would your best friend say is your fatal flaw? Why?

My best friend is the captain, Danica Nova. She knows of my pain; she shares in it. And what would she say is my flaw? That I suffer in silence, perhaps. Every time she has question, she is asking me for help, seeking for my guidance. She believes that everyone must have someone on whom they can lean, that without this, no one can truly stand. And so she sees me suffering, and wishes that I would talk with her, so that these wounds might heal.

But I do not wish for my wounds to heal. They are the last thing I have left–the pain which tells me I have not yet faded, that I am still human. I have lived many years with this pain, and I do not know what would become of me without it. And so, it is not my friends, but the pain, that has been my constant companion these many long years.

I do not know if this is flaw, but I do know that Danica would say that it is.

What would the same friend say is your one redeeming quality? Why?

That question, I know without a doubt what is the answer. It is that I will do anything–anything–for my men. You see my arm, how that it is prosthetic? I lost the original fighting in a battle that all of us thought we would lose. If I am fading, it is because I have given my life for my men–and I will continue to do so until I have nothing left to give.

What do you want most? What will you do to get it?

<laughs> A strange question, with an even stranger answer. As you can see, I am man of war–but if there is one thing that I wish for, it is peace. Peace! And what sort of peace, you may ask? I will tell you. I wish for the peace that one feels by coming home. <throws back head and laughs again>

And so you see, my friend, this is a peace that I can never feel. My homeworld is gone–slagged into oblivion. My country has been destroyed, my people scattered across a hundred stars. I have nothing left but to keep on fighting; and so, even though I long for peace, I continue to make war, because it is all that I am.

But what will I do to get this peace? I will tell you. Since I do not have a homeland, I will find this peace by dying for my men. It is fitting, is it not? That the man of war should only find peace in his own death? This is as it should be. But it must not be a selfish death–it must be a sacrifice, so that others may live.

Thank you very much, Roman. I enjoyed writing Bringing Stella Home, and look forward to chronicling your further exploits in Stars of Blood and Glory.

My pleasure.

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As an interesting side note, if Roman had a theme song, this would be it. Have a great day!

Getting back into things

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately; I just got back to Massachusetts from a cross-country train trip (after spending Christmas between Utah and Texas), and I’m still getting situated here at my parents’ house. If all goes well, I’ll be leaving by the end of the month to teach English in Georgia; worst case scenario, I sign up for a different program and spend a few more months here than I’d bargained for.

Things on the writing front are going well, though; I’ve been pulling between 1.5k and 2.5k words per day pretty consistently, all on Stars of Blood and Glory. It’s very refreshing to be working on a new project again, and while I don’t feel like I’m into it as much as I could, with nothing else to distract me hopefully that will soon change.

One other interesting thing I’m doing right now is keeping track of the stats for my writing sessions: how many words I write, what times I start and finish, how many words per hour I average, etc. The data is turning out to be quite interesting, so once I get to about 50 or 100 data points, I’ll post my findings. It’s definitely giving me some much needed insight into my writing process.

In the next couple of days, I’ll post the ebook numbers for December and my quarterly report (I might actually combine the two into one post, come to think of it). Also, I’ll finally get around to sending out the email newsletter, with some goodies like desktop wallpaper for Desert Stars. If you haven’t yet signed up for the newsletter, you can do that via the form on the sidebar. —>

Finally, to round things out, I’ll link you to this awesome Final Fantasy VI tribute I found on teh internets:

Man, such an awesome, awesome game. I almost did a full length novelization of FF6. Instead, I wrote my first novel. It was definitely the better choice at the time…but a part of me still wants to revisit that world through writing my own fanfic. Someday, maybe…

Trope Tuesday: Xanatos Speed Chess

Well, I can’t say any of this mess was part of my original plan, but it’s all working out so beautifully that I can’t complain.

Tarvek, Girl Genius.

The Xanatos Gambit is when a character plans out a scheme such that all possible outcomes (including abject failure) ultimately benefit that character. Named after David Xanatos from Gargoyles, it is most often used by villains who are very good at evading karma.

Xanatos Speed Chess, on the other hand, is when the character relies not on setting up an only-win scenario from the beginning, but on being able to adapt and change their plans quickly enough to pull off a victory even after their first few attempts inevitably fail. For this character, the important thing is not to keep everything from falling apart, but to outsmart their opponent even after everything already has.

Both heroes and villains can play at this game, but the heroes generally tend to be better at it. Part of the reason for this is that try-fail cycles are much more conducive to Xanatos speed chess than the Xanatos gambit. The heroes might lose a pawn or two, or even the queen, but that doesn’t stop them from turning defeat into victory. In fact, depending on the story, it may provide exactly the sort of dramatic tension that makes the ending so awesome.

A good example of this in recent cinema would probably be the new Mission: Impossible movie. Over and over, the mission falls apart–and the characters respond either by changing the mission or by crafting a new one. It’s one of the things that makes it such a great spy thriller: the tension is always high, because you never know how they’re going to pull it off.

The opposite of this trope is the Indy Ploy. This is because Xanatos speed chess is still chess; even though the plans are dynamic, they are still plans, and involve a large degree of calculation and forethought. With the Indy ploy, the character is just wingin’ it, jumping into the thick of things and making it up as they go along.

The main reason I’m interested in this trope is because my current project, Stars of Blood and Glory, has a strong military plot, and I want one of the characters to be a magnificent bastard. Let’s just say that if Bringing Stella Home is the Mongol conquests in space, Stars of Blood and Glory is the Battle of Ayn Jalut. It’s going to be challenging to pull it off, but that’s part of what makes writing so much fun…

Writing Resolutions for 2012

As I write this post, I’m riding on the California Zephyr through western Colorado, going to my parents’ house in Massachusetts before heading out overseas on an adventure that I have no idea where it will take me before the end of the year. It’s an interesting time to make New Year’s resolutions, because so much is up in the air at this point, but two things are for certain: I will continue to write, and I will continue to publish.

A lot has changed for me since 2010. Around this time last year, I was still in query-writing mode, looking for an agent, and getting a little desperate for work. I eventually found work at an alarm company, which lasted through the summer until I realized it wasn’t helping me advance towards my long-term goals. And as for the query-go-round, I made the tremendous paradigm shift into indie publishing around the same time, eventually publishing three novels, three short stories, and one novella. Sales haven’t been spectacular, but they have been earning me a trickle of money that amounts to a few hundred dollars by now. Not quite a living yet, but if I keep at it, it might just become that.

My dream since 2009 has been to make a full-time living telling stories that I love. With all the opportunities made possible through ebooks and indie publishing, I have great hopes of accomplishing that within the next few years. However, I do think it’s going to take time, which is why I’ve decided to go abroad to teach English for a while. It’s the perfect kind of career for young people going through a transitional time in their lives, and I think I’ll find it a lot more enriching than bouncing around dead-end warehouse jobs until the writing starts to take off.

I can’t foresee exactly where this path will take me, but I can take accountability for the things within my control. So with that in mind, here are my resolutions:

1: Independently Publish At Least Two Books in 2012.

This shouldn’t be too hard. Journey to Jordan is already in the queue; all I have to do is make a final self-editing pass and figure out how to insert the photos. Besides that, I have the direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, Heart of the Nebula, which I should be able to revise, polish, and publish before the end of the year, perhaps as early as summer.

Besides these projects, though, the queue is conspicuously empty, which is why I’ve come up with the following resolution:

2: Constantly Work on Producing New Material.

This is a big one–in the past, I’ve taken time off from new projects to work on major revisions, and as I mentioned in this post, it’s slowed me down a lot more than I would like. I’ve never been able to juggle two projects for more than a week, but this is a skill I should probably learn if I’m going to do this professionally.

I hesitate to put a concrete number like “four completed novel drafts before 2013” because this is an aspect of my writing process that I still need to explore. If I peg myself to a number, I could as easily find that I’ve set it too low as that I’ve set it too high. The important thing at this point is to learn the self-discipline.

3: Read and Review a New Book Every Week.

This is a tricky goal that I’ve tried and failed at before, but I really feel that reading voraciously is going to help my writing more at this point than working on craft or attending conventions. Those are good too, of course, but there’s something about reading and analyzing other works, both inside and outside of your chosen genre. I’ve been slacking off on this a lot lately, and if I’m not careful, my writing will get worse because of it.

With my Kindle ereader and low-priced ebooks, I have a lot of reason to be optimistic about this goal, even though I’ll be on the go for most of the year. It’s like having an iPod for books–and with the sampling system, I don’t have to worry so much about whether or not it’s worth buying the book. Simply download the free sample, and if I’m still interested by the end, click and continue.

4: Experience at Least Three 10k Days.

This ambitious resolution comes from a post I wrote earlier in reaction to this post here. Basically, I want to boost my productivity and break through some mental barriers that have been in place for the past few years, and pushing myself to do a couple 10k sprints will hopefully help to reset my stride at a much higher rate.

At first, I was going to say “three consecutive 10k days,” but with all the uncertainty accompanying my travels and new TEFL career, that doesn’t seem like a good idea at this point. If/when I’ve saved up enough money to take a few months off from everything else, then I’ll set a goal like that.

5: Attempt to Write a Novel in a Week.

This is more of something I want to do for fun, just to see if I can. Apparently, Michael Moorcock used to write novels in three days, and while I’d like to try that too, a week seems like a more realistic goal. At 40,000 to 50,000 words minimum, I don’t even have to break 10k/day to do it. 🙂

So those are my writing resolutions for the next year. As always, I’ll continue to write for this blog, hopefully with a lot more book reviews in the coming months. In the meantime, though, this post is getting long, and I’d better get back to writing.

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to 2012 and all the possibility it brings!

Back from Texas, or My Last Day in Provo

So! My Christmas vacation in Texas is over, and I’m on the road again, hanging out here in Utah before catching the train to my parents’ house in Massachusetts and (hopefully) going overseas before the end of the month.

It was a great break! Great to see my niece and three nephews together. I swear, my sisters have the cutest kids; it’s going to be a real challenge to find a woman beautiful enough so that my kids will be able to compete! For Christmas, I gave them all trilobites from my fossil collection.

My favorite moment was probably playing with them at the community park, on the slides and other stuff. Jane, who is two and a half, likes to wear pretty dresses and run around the playground talking to herself, which is really cute. Dan, who just started to walk, would climb up to the slides and then stop at the top because he’s too scared to go down. It was fun watching him discover and explore his world.

On the way back to Utah, we stopped by my old roommate Steve’s place up in Dallas. He lives in an apartment that is just like a freaking motel…how crazy is that? Pretty cool, actually. It was fun to see him again, especially since he’s getting married in April. Good times.

My sister gave me the gift of her stomach flu, though, which really hit the next day. Around Amarillo, it got so bad that we pulled over on the shoulder and I fell out of the car vomiting. It was…like something from one of my novels, actually. We were hoping to make it all the way to Farmington and the Navajo reservation, but ended up in a Hotel 8 outside of Clines Corner for a very miserable night.

The next day was much better, though, and we made good time all the way back to Provo. My brother in law couldn’t stop talking about the book I’d gotten him, Born to Run, and said that it’s changed his life (he’s a runner…go figure). We also talked about story structure, Girl Genius, places we’d like to settle down, life plans, etc. Stopped in Moab for some dinner, and in Bluff to check out this really cool looking historical site. We switched over in Blanding, and before we knew it, I was pulling us into Provo after driving almost five hours straight.

As a side note, I want to say that I love Southern Utah. ZOMG, it has some of the most beautiful desolate country I have ever seen. Inasmuch as I can see myself settling down anywhere, I’d really like to settle down in a place like Monticello or Blanding or Saint George.

Texas is also beautiful, but I’d probably find the rampant consumerism a bit too stifling, and New England winters are far too dark and depressing (unless you have a cozy little cottage with a wood-burning stove). But Utah–this is my people, living in my kind of country: wild, open, and desolate, where the pioneers are remembered by name and ancient Indian ghosts still haunt the land.

So anyway, I’m back in Provo for a day before heading out on a train late tonight to Massachusetts. If you’re in the area and want to hang out, give me a call. This is my last day in Utah for at least the next couple of years or so, and I want to make it count!

My internet access in the next couple of days is going to be spotty, but I want to do a couple more posts to round out the year. A lot of things changed for me in 2011, so I want to recap that, and I’ve been thinking a lot about my New Year’s resolutions, so I’ll definitely do a post on that as well. I’ll probably write those on the train, though, so they might not go up until next week.

That’s the plan, anyway. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and I look forward to hearing from you again soon!

Trope Tuesday: New Year Has Come

Just like a story, every year has a beginning and an end. For this reason, New Years has become a time to celebrate change, renewal, and the setting of impossible goals which we will all probably break by March. Over time, this tradition has become so ingrained in our culture that it’s only natural for it to pop up in our fiction.

Most stories that feature a New Year subplot are episodic, such as cartoons, comics, anime/manga, and television shows. They usually reflect real-world holiday traditions, such as the practice of setting New Year’s resolutions. Because all stories need conflict (but also because fiction sometimes reflects reality), the characters in these stories are often just setting themselves up for failure in some hilarious way.

At first glance, this might seem depressing. After all, if most of us will never reach our goals, why do we even bother setting them? Why torture ourselves with guilt when, in all likelihood, we’re just setting ourselves up for failure?

In some ways, I think it comes down to this quote from David Gemmell:

May all your dreams come true save one; for what is life without a dream?

One of the things that makes us human is that we all need to have some impossible dream to strive for, some sense of hope for the future. Through our New Year’s resolutions, we tap into that sense that anything is possible, and that we can change who we are and become better people.

For some of us, those resolutions are an effective tool to turn their lives around. For those of us who lack that kind of will or self-discipline, the act of setting resolutions still helps us reflect on our lives and change in ways that perhaps we don’t immediately perceive. After all, the truest measure of success isn’t whether you’ve accomplished all your goals, but how much you’ve changed through striving to meet them.

That’s my take on it, anyway. In any case, a New Year’s story is a great way to give your characters some time for reflection, since it’s probably the most introspective holiday in our Western culture. It’s a time for beginnings, endings, and chasing impossible dreams.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas from Texas!

Merry Christmas y’all! I’m down here in Texas, spending the holidays with family; it was either Texas with my sister’s family, or Massachusetts with my parents, and we all agreed that the weather was better down south.

My brother-in-law and I drove down here from Provo, and it was a fun little road trip! We passed through New Mexico just before the storm, stopping at Roswell to see the UFO museum. Interesting stuff! Spent a night with family in West Texas before driving across the state today, arriving just this evening. Highlights include conversations about The Dispossessed, postmodernism vs. moral absolutism, the Lebanese civil war, and the excesses of modern consumer culture.

We’ll probably be here until Wednesday, then it’s back to Utah to drop off the car and back east for me, taking the train back to my parent’s house before heading overseas to teach English. The last few weeks have been pretty hectic, what with moving and all, but now that I’m out of my apartment and on the road, I think things will be less stressful in some ways–fewer balls to juggle.

I don’t foresee getting into much of a routine again until after the holidays, but I’ve been able to write between 500 to 1,000 words per day in Stars of Blood and Glory so far, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep that up. And of course, the train ride should be perfect for pounding out words.

Before the end of the year, I’ll probably do the whole reflections on 2011 thing and resolutions for 2012, but posting might be a little spotty over the next few days, at least until after Christmas. It’s a time for family, after all. So anyhow, I hope y’all have a wonderful holidays, and I’ll catch you after it’s over!

Trope Tuesday: Celibate Hero vs. The Fettered

schlockreverend — Yes, there are still good men out there...and they tend to know who's boss.

I’m mashing up two tropes this week because I’m not satisfied with the one. There are a bazillion tropes about characters who are sexually active, but very few about sexually chaste characters that don’t portray them as weak, clueless, or socially inept.

According to tvtropes, a celibate hero is a main character who “doesn’t do the romance thing.” Unlike the chaste hero, who is just clueless, the celibate hero has made a conscious decision not to engage in sexual relations or get tied down in a relationship. There may be any number of reasons for this, but it usually comes down to some combination of Love is a Weakness, Love Hurts, and It’s Not You, It’s My Enemies.

(As a hilarious example of this: TESLA!!!)

But what about the character who isn’t necessarily opposed to romance, but feels that they should wait until marriage to have sex? Unfortunately, this trope is pretty rare nowadays. I can only think of two mainstream examples: Edward from Twilight and Reverend Theo from Schlock Mercenary.

Theo in particular is a great example of this, because he’s not clueless, he’s not weak, and he not only gets the girl, he gets the girl that everyone wants. The only reason he holds out is because his religious order forbids sex before marriage. It does permit priests to marry, however, so Theo does manage to balance the two.

So why are characters like this so rare? Unfortunately, I think it comes down to the widespread notion that a true man isn’t a virgin, and that sex makes people cool. If we accept these tropes as true, then that means that men who exercise self-restraint are actually weak and pitiful, and couples who choose to wait are pathetic losers.

It’s worth pointing out that both Edward and Reverent Theo were created by writers who are practicing Mormons–people who belong to a religious community where it’s still the norm to wait until marriage. If literature is the way that the culture speaks to itself, then this goes to show just how unrestrained the rest of Western society has become.

This is why I think that the better trope for this kind of character is The Fettered. Unlike the celibate hero, who usually gives up sex for some kind of external reason, the fettered gives it up as a matter of principle. Living by his ideals isn’t easy, and he’s constantly tempted to give in and break his moral code. However, by resisting these temptations, the fettered gains great strength, and can stand like a beacon of light in an otherwise disillusioned world.

This is actually something that I tried to do with my latest novel, Desert Stars. The main character, Jalil, is a man who believes in honor, and follows a code of abstinence before marriage. However, to manipulate him into staying at the camp, his father charges Mira, the female protagonist, to seduce him. Since the fettered’s strength is also his greatest weakness, if Mira can get Jalil to sully her honor, then out of shame he will return and marry her.

The catch? She actually has feelings for him, and doesn’t want to manipulate him in this way. In this way, merely persuading him to have sex isn’t a win condition–in fact, if done in the wrong way, it could be a very serious “game over.”

Whether or not I actually pulled it off well is up to the readers to judge. But one thing I was definitely shooting for was to write a character who fulfills this trope in an unconventional yet powerful way. And if you’ll permit me to step onto my soapbox for a little bit, I think our culture desperately needs more heroes like this–heroes who show that real men are capable of self-restraint, and that following a moral code is still cool, even if it means waiting to consummate a relationship.

Desert Stars is now published!

Desert Stars, my third novel (and second in the Gaia Nova series), is now available as an independently published ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Within the next couple of weeks, it’ll be available through Kobo, iTunes, Diesel, Sony, and Xinxii as well.

It’s been a long journey, and I’m thrilled to finally see it come through. I started the first draft back in the fall of 2008, but had been working on ideas for the world since 2005, when I returned from my LDS church mission in California. Spending the summer of 2008 in Jordan was a major catalyst for my imagination, and I soon was bursting with ideas for a far-future story on a desert world.

I got stuck in the winter of 2009, however–right before taking Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class. Since he encourages all of his students to work on something new, I decided to write a book in the same universe in order to work through some of the world-building things that were holding me up. That book became Bringing Stella Home, which was a thrill to write all of its own.

The strategy worked; by the time I’d finished that one, I had a much clearer idea where to go with Desert Stars, and an awesome ending that was nothing like anything I’d planned in the first draft. And so, after graduating in April 2010, I soldiered through and finished the rough draft that summer.

It still had a lot of problems, though. Fortunately, my first readers were extremely helpful both in pointing those out and in giving me fantastic ideas for other things I could do. In the second draft that winter, I completely scrapped a major subplot in the second half of the book and focused on perfecting the character arcs for the two main characters: Jalil and Mira.

Around this time, I made the paradigm shift from traditional to indie publishing. Other projects like Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home took my attention for a while, as I learned the basics of the new world and prepared those books for publication. However, I always kept coming back to Desert Stars: I knew I had a good story there, and I was just itching to bring it to its full potential.

In the fall of 2011, I finally had that opportunity. The last draft flew by in three weeks, and was one of the funnest writing experiences I’ve had since I started writing seriously in 2007. By the end, I knew it was ready. I sent it out to my editor, Josh Leavitt, and started to prepare it for publication.

In writing any book, there are always moments that stand out; experiences where things come together in an unexpected yet memorable way. One of those came to me in Jordan, while I was walking down Queen Rania street from the University of Jordan to Al-Dustour, and the phrase “Temple of a Thousand Suns” flashed into my mind and sparked the whole novel. Another of those moments happened while I was driving from Salt Lake to Provo, and Mira’s final words in the last chapter came to me; I literally could not stop screaming for two or three minutes.

I could share more, but if I did, I’d find it difficult to maintain the illusion that I’m not a loony psychopath. 🙂

In any case, it’s just awesome to see the story come to maturity and embark out into the world. I’m sure this isn’t the end of the journey, but it’s definitely entering a new and exciting phase. I sincerely believe that this is my best book yet, and I hope you find it as worthwhile to read as I have found it worthwhile to write. If you do, I would appreciate it greatly if you took the time to post a review, or share it with a friend. Every little bit helps, and I’m grateful for whatever support you can give!

In the next couple of days, I’m going to send out a newsletter with some freebies including desktop backgrounds of the cover art. If you’d like to get in on that, be sure to sign up for the email newsletter via the form on the sidebar; you’ll also receive notices for other giveaways, as well as new releases. It costs nothing and you can always unsubscribe, so there’s no pressure or obligation.

And that just about wraps it up. Now: on to the next book!

Desert Stars cover is finished!

Here it is, guys! What do you think?

I played around a little bit with the text this time, coloring it and putting in some noise to give it a hint of texture. The title and subtitle font is LilyUPC, and the author name font is Alpha Centauri (from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri–best empire building strategy game ever).

If no one points out any glaring errors, I’m going to make the ebooks right now and upload them to Kindle, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble sometime tomorrow. I’d do it tonight, but it’s getting late, and I’m starting to come down with cabin fever.

After all these years, it’s finally happening! Yay!