Joe Vasicek

Tag and such

So my cousin Angela tagged me in this cross-linking truth-or-dare blog game, and it looks fun so I figured I’d participate. Here goes:

Do you think you’re hot?

I suffer from no illusions as to my ability (or rather, lack thereof) to carnally attract the opposite sex. That’s not to say I’m ugly, but when you apply the Pareto principle to dating (and let’s be honest, it’s really more of a 90/10 split), I don’t make the cut.

And you know what? I’m fine with that. Because it only takes one…

What is your current desktop wallpaper?

This glorious image from APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day). It’s enough to make me want to move to Iceland, and that’s saying something.

When was the last time you ate chicken?

I made some awesome fajitas last week, and the chicken was on sale at Maceys. I always cook my own chicken; I hate the precooked frozen stuff.

What were you thinking as you were doing this?

Who comes up with these things anyway? Hmm, I wonder if I could start one…

Do you have nicknames?

I have two internet screen names, which are probably the only nicknames of mine that are still in use (besides the ones people use behind my back). The first is “onelowerlight,” and it’s all over the place. The second I use only on deviant art and a certain fan-fiction site, and it is and shall remain a closely guarded secret.

Tag eight blogger friends…

Alright, let’s do this. LEEERRROYYY…

Gods, Witches, Space & Stars
Kate in Katy
Myself as Written
One Modern Mormon
Truthiness
Fertilizer
Not A Villain (technically a webcomic not a blog, but hey she’s an old friend)
سفريات أنثون

Who’s listed as number one?

My old writing friend Laura, who just got back from an LDS mission in Armenia. Has a lot of interesting and insightful things to say, such as her last post on the difference between strong female characters who are independent vs. strong female characters who are interdependent.

Say something about number five.

Sarah is one of my little sisters, and she just had a baby! Also, she worked for a couple years in a survivalist-oriented wilderness therapy program, and knows how to make traps, kill and eat animals, and make fire with sticks and a bow. Oh, and she’s also hilarious. If I’m ever stranded on a desert island, she’s my first pick for who I’d want with me.

How did you get to know number three?

Chuck? I think she showed up at a writing group meeting when I was VP of Quark. She was never really active in the club, but we also took Sanderson’s 318 class a couple times and went to CONduit in 2008 together. Meh; she’s alright, I guess (jk!).

How about number four?

(who comes up with these questions?)

Mykle is my geekiest brother in law, at least in terms of books and sf&f fandom (linux, that would be Danny). He married Sarah two months after meeting her and I think it was the best decision either of them ever made. He doesn’t blog much, but when he does, it’s always thoughtful and interesting.

Leave a message for number six

Thanks Kindal for the feedback on Worlds Away! Blunt as always but quite helpful.

Leave a lovey-dovey message for number two

For my sister?? Ewwwww…

Seriously Kate, I love your blog. And you have the freaking cutest daughter on the face of the planet. Thanks for making me an uncle!

Do number seven and number eight have any similarities?

Yes, in fact. Aneeka (no. 7) spent a couple years teaching English in Japan; Anthon (no. 8 ) hasn’t spent more than a week or two in the same place (or more than a month or two on the same continent) for the last two years. Let me just say, I am in awe of these world travelers and hope to do likewise at some point in the future.

That’s it folks. At least I have chicken.

First review and an announcement

So shortly after I joined the Kindle Boards, Michelle from Red Adept Reviews contacted me for a blog interview to go along with a review she was doing for “From the Ice Incarnate.” The review and interview were posted over the weekend; you can find them here.

The review is generally positive, though I think the criticism is pretty fair; I’m much better at writing novels than writing short stories. It was a pleasant surprise, however, to have a reviewer come to me, and to come so quickly. I honestly wasn’t expecting that, so thanks!

“From the Ice Incarnate” is based on a scene from my novel Genesis Earth, which I will be epublishing very soon. I just got the initial sketches from the cover artist I selected, and they look really good! The only other holdup is my copy editor, and he should be finished by Wednesday, so hopefully the novel will be out in a week or so.

In order to spread the word, I’d like to put together a blog tour. If you have a blog and would like me to write a guest post, that would be awesome! Just email me with a subject to discuss, or a list of interview questions, and I’ll let you know when I can fit you in. I’ll also post a link on this site, so my readers here can find your blog.

So anyhow, that’s what’s going on here. I’m very excited to get Genesis Earth out, and also that my work is starting to get some attention. Hopefully, that will continue to build; in the meantime, I’ll keep on doing what I always do: write.

Rocking the rewrite

I am well into the third draft of Worlds Away from Home, and oh man–it is so much fun! That might seem a bit counter-intuitive (revising = fun?), so let me explain my process.

In a first draft, I have a ton of ideas, but it’s hard for me to keep track of them all (and they also tend to change even as I write them). I’ll cobble together a story out of them, but it’s a rough, misshapen story, with subplots that go nowhere, characters who seem schizophrenic, scenes set in the wrong point of view, and setting details that are inconsistent. The main throughline is still there, but it’s buried under a ton of crap, sometimes so much that even I can’t see it.

In a second draft, I cut out the worst of the crap and try to dig out the core story elements. I’ll cut entire chapters and subplots, throw out characters, rework the world, and fix as many of the glaring errors as I can.

Some writers call this a “triage edit,” and that’s as apt a term for it as any. I’m not doing surgery yet; I’m applying the field dressings that will get the wounded from the battlefield to the operating table.

But the third draft, by far, is my favorite. That’s when I take a hard look at the story and figure out how everything connects. It’s like dumping out a new Lego set and opening up the instructions. This is where I iron out the major character arcs, where I start to intertwine the subplots properly, where I get a sense of the book’s themes and figure out how to make it insightful and thought provoking.

Writing the third draft is absolutely glorious, and I love it.

Right now, I feel so immersed in the world of my novel, it makes me want to lock myself in a room and do nothing but write. I have to force myself to go to bed, otherwise I’d be up until 4am writing. Even with some of the major changes I need to make with this book, I wouldn’t be surprised if I average 4k or 5k words per day for the next two weeks (about all the time I have before I have to go back to work).

I finished the third draft of Genesis Earth in less than three weeks. I finished the third draft of Bringing Stella Home in considerably more time than that, but that was partially because of other real-world stuff out of my control (like a nightmarish internship), but between that and the fourth draft, it was much the same thing.

So anyhow, I’m having an awesome time revising Worlds Away from Home, and the finished draft is going to be AWESOME. And next to changing someone’s life with one of your books, that’s probably one of the best feelings you can have as a writer.

Man, writing is so much fun. 🙂

Buy me lunch and I’ll teach you how to make an ebook

Okay, this is insane. For a long time, I’ve kept up with Writer Beware as a source for quality news about publishing scams, but now…huh?

Recently, Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katherine Rusch have been giving a TON of warnings about “agent-publishers” –agents who are electronically publishing their clients when they’re supposed to represent their clients’ interests to publishers.

DWS and KKR have both been unequivocal about this–any agent doing this is running a scam and should be avoided like the plague. And you know what? I believe them. Why? Because using entirely free and/or open source software, I can create a professionally formatted ebook from any of my manuscripts in less than an hour.

Less than an hour.

And I’m not a computer expert either, just a blogger who knows some basic html (which you, too, can learn free of charge at w3schools).

Well, just today I read a post on Writer Beware about these agent-publishers that made my jaw drop. Summary: agents who ran publishing operations used to be considered scammers, but things have changed so that that’s legit now. The phrase that really got to me was “unimpeachably reputable agencies.”

Huh?

According to DWS and KKR, these “unimpeachably reputable agencies” become scammers the moment they start publishing their clients’ works. Clearly, someone is wrong, and my own experience tells me it isn’t DWS or KKR.

Making a professional looking ebook is literally easier than writing a query or a synopsis. Light years easier. Paying someone a commission for doing it is like writing the boy down the street who mows your lawn into your mortgage contract. It makes literally no business sense.

And yet people still think that this agent-publisher things is legitimate? Wha…?

Okay, you know what? If you’re a writer in the Provo/Orem area, I’ll show you everything I know about making an ebook if you’ll buy me lunch. Heck, if you live in Salt Lake and are willing to take me to this awesome Lebanese place, I’ll make a special trip just for you!

I’ll show you what you need to download, install it for you, teach you how it works, and run you step by step through the formatting process until you have a beautiful ebook on your hard drive. I’ll teach you everything I know (which honestly isn’t that much), and I’ll do it all for the price of lunch. Just email me at joseph [dot] vasicek [at] gmail [dot] com, and I’ll write you into my schedule.

Why would I take the time out of my day (and away from my own writing) to do this? Well, for one, I really like Lebanese food. But more importantly, it’s in all of our interests as writers that none of us get caught up in these crazy scams. They don’t benefit us and will actually hurt us all in the long run, if we let them happen.

So yes, once again, if you’re a writer living anywhere between Provo and Salt Lake City, I will show you everything I know about formatting ebooks if you will buy me lunch. I’m not even joking.

And I love Lebanese food. Once we’re finished, I think you will too.

Drawing up the starmaps

I’m a big fan of indirect sequels, where each book tells a standalone story but incorporates many of the same characters as other works and is set in the same world. Sharon Creech did this with Walk Two Moons and Absolutely Normal Chaos: the main character from ANC was a minor character in WTM.

The thing is, I write space opera, which means that each novel spans at least two or three different star systems. After four or five novels, it can get really hard to remember where all the stars are in relation to each other. So, taking my own advice from an earlier post, I drew up a starmap for my universe.

For a pattern, I used these maps of the region of space local to Sol. I’ve since forgotten where I got them; I think wikipedia, or maybe the atomic rockets site:

Since they’re only 2-dimensional, they have some obvious shortcomings, but for my purposes they work just fine. The thing I like the most about these maps is that they show rough distributions of interstellar gas and dust. In my Gaia Nova universe, areas of high density (such as the interiors of nebulae) are off limits to the FTL technology, so finding a way to show that was absolutely critical.

And so, after playing around with MS Paint and The Gimp, this is what I came up with:

It’s definitely a work in progress (seeing as I’ve only got about a dozen stars up so far), but I’ve got to be honest–I geeked out hardcore when I was finished with this thing. Whether you’re writing fantasy or science fiction adventure (which I’d argue is a branch of fantasy), there’s just something about having a map…

The best thing is that it’s REALLY easy to update. If I want, I can throw up half a dozen new stars in fifteen minutes–or rearrange the current arrangement of stars with the simple click of a mouse. That’s good, because I don’t want to spend all my time drawing up maps–the map is just a tool to help me write the stories.

And oh man, I’ve got a lot of stories to tell! 🙂

Into the Nebulous Deep 1.1 is finished!

That’s right; my fifth novel, Into the Nebulous Deep, is finished! Here are the stats:

ms pages: 447
words: 101,215
file size: 230 KB
chapters: 20
start date: 7 March 2011
end date: 14 May 2011

And the wordle:

This novel is a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, and takes place within the same universe as Worlds Away from Home (note to self: find new title for that one). I got the idea for the novel from a conversation with one of my first readers for BSH, who mentioned that James didn’t get a whole lot of closure at the end and still had a lot of maturing to do. Immediately, I saw that there was a story there, and got to work figuring out how to tell it.

This was back in October, and like so many other things, the project quickly started going in about twenty different directions. I was still on something of an sf romance binge, so I decided to throw in a love story, and that quickly turned into a love triangle with a weird sf twist. But then, I started getting interested in the girls’ stories, which led to other subplots, which led to more stuff…and…and…

Actually, for a rough draft, I feel I pulled it off pretty well. I dropped the ball on some aspects of the story (didn’t develop the techno-democracy elements of the Colony hardly at all, and dropped James’s sidekick without giving his character a satisfying arc), and forgot to throw in other stuff until well past midway through (the wolf vs. sheepdog debate–Lars has a rather feisty take on that, which should be interesting), but I think the overall structure is mostly intact. For a rough draft, I’m rather pleased.

Of course, it will need a major triage edit before I can send it out to any first readers. It has problems, I know what they are, and I need to give the draft a major overhaul to get it to the point where feedback would be helpful.

But after ten weeks of working on this thing, I’m ready to move on to something else. Next up: my second revision of Worlds Away from Home. I am sooo stoked to get working on this project–it’s going to be AWESOME!

The song that had the biggest impact on my as I wrote ITND was probably this remix of hot head bop on ocremix. I think the lyrics sum up James’s character pretty well, especially in this book:

Now, onto other exciting things!

Thoughts on outlining

I’m on track to finish my fifth novel in a couple days, and surprisingly, the writing has been going very smoothly.

Usually by this point, my eyes are bleeding and I feel as if I have a hundred caltrops in my pants. Finishing a rough draft is still the hardest part for me, since by the end everything seems to suck and I just want to trash the whole project.

I still feel a little bit of that with Into the Nebulous Deep, but not nearly as much as with my previous stuff. Part of that is probably because I feel confident that I can fix whatever I screw up, but the other part probably has to do with the way I’ve learned to outline. In one short sentence, here’s what I’ve learned:

An outline is simply the story you tell yourself to help you tell the story.

I don’t think there’s any mortal writer on this planet who can keep a whole novel in their head at one time. Scenes, yes; chapters, maybe; novels, absolutely not.

However, since everyone’s creative mind works a little differently, everyone has to find the process that works for them. Brandon Sanderson, for example, writes story bibles that are almost 100k words long. If I were to try to do that, I’d get bored halfway through and spend the rest of the day dorking around on youtube. Other people prefer to fly by the seat of their pants, and while there’s something to say about trusting your subconscious, I need a little structure to keep from getting totally lost.

It took me a while to figure out the process that best works for me, but based on how ITND has been going, I think I’ve hit my stride. Breaking it down into plot, setting, and character, here’s how I basically do it:

Plot

For me, the basic plot of the story comes in a flash of creative insight once all the ideas in my head have reached a critical mass. It’s like watching a fissure shoot across a smashed window pane, or lightning arcing from the ground to the sky.

If I don’t have time to start the project right away, I’ll let the plot mull around in my head for a couple days, then open up notepad and free write the basic structure of the story in an unedited stream of consciousness. When I do start the project, I’ll look back to the free write to refresh my memory, but otherwise work out of what’s in my head (which may have changed).

While the project is ongoing, I’ll divide the whole novel into parts, chapters, and scenes. For the chapter I’m currently working on, I’ll have the various scenes listed in bold with their corresponding point of view character (eg: “1.1: James“), followed by a brief one or two line description of the action and plot significance. If I introduce a new character in that scene, I’ll write their name in ALL CAPS (I believe that’s a screenwriting convention I picked up from my old college roommate).

For chapters I haven’t written yet, I just write a few lines of description for what I envision happening in them. When I first start out, I usually have a clear idea where I want the story to end, but I don’t bother outlining all the stuff in the middle since that usually changes based on stuff that comes before. I only keep my outline a few chapters ahead of where I currently am, and may change things completely if something new comes up.

This process works very well for me. I use it for every draft, and refer to it often.

Character

I’ve found that I need to do a lot more outlining to figure out my characters than I do with my plot. However, it’s like Tracy Hickman said with the marbles: don’t hold onto your outline too tight, or all the marbles will slip out between your fingers.

The things I absolutely need to know about my characters are:

back story
motivations
first impressions
flaws & handicaps
strengths & advantages
why the reader should care about / sympathize with them

For some odd reason, I find it most helpful to write this out longhand, usually while taking a walk. For additional help, sometimes I’ll take a personality test on behalf of my character and get a handle on them through their personality type; for that, I prefer the Meyers-Briggs typology.

But once I feel I have a solid handle on a character, I’ll throw everything out if it feels instinctively right for a character to do something completely different. Thing is, I need the outline (especially the motivations and back story) to get to the point where I know the character well enough to let them take over.

And for some reason, all my main characters feel too…generic. I’m not sure why, but that’s something I’ve got to work on.

Setting

Setting, for me, is all about discovery writing. I’ve tried using wikidpad to worldbuild my universe before I start, but that’s never worked. Instead, I daydream a lot and trust my subconscious to give me what I need when I need it.

That’s not to say I don’t do research–just that most of my research is on the fly. If I only stay on wikipedia and the footnotes and references, no problem; if I get sidetracked on facebook, however…

Often, when I’m doing setting descriptions, I’ll run a quick google image search to pull up pictures to give me a better visual idea of what I’m describing. I especially use this for clothing; that’s why, if you check my search history (please don’t), you’ll find all these weird, girly terms like “ottoman dress,” “jumpsuit,” “leather jerkin,” and ~~“full frontal snogging”~~ (whoops, where did THAT come from??).

The big problem is when I figure something at the beginning of the book and then forget about it halfway through. For that reason, I should probably invest in a good copy editor when I start to publish. I should also take the time to draw out a starmap, since it’s getting REALLY hard for me to remember where the Belarian system is in relation to Tajjur and Karduna Prime…hmm…

I should probably figure out a better system to keep track of my settings, but as far as outlining them goes, the less the better. I love waving my hand and creating stuff–it’s one of the main reasons why I’m a science fiction writer.

So anyways, that’s more or less the outlining system I currently use. I might end up outgrowing certain aspects of it, or finding a better system, but this is what works best for me now.

Of course, I still have a lot to learn.

Where will Joe go?

Just a quick and dirty update before bed, because hey it’s been forever since I’ve posted to this thing.

Holy crap, this last week was CRAZY for my family! Youngest sister got married, middle sister had a baby, and oldest sister…well, I’m not at liberty to discuss that yet. But congratulations to all of you!

It was fun to get out and see everyone, but now that I’m back, man I’m looking forward to the next month. Wrote 2.5k words today in ITND, only two more chapters and an epilogue to go.

And strangely enough, I don’t feel like the project totally sucks. Usually by this point, my fingertips are bleeding it hurts so much to write. But no, even though this is a rough draft and it needs some major story level edits, I don’t feel that it totally sucks (knock on wood).

Now, whether that’s a sign that I’m maturing as a writer, or simply self-delusion …your guess is as good as mine. Probably better, actually.

One thing I’m really wondering about, though, are my post-summer plans. Originally, I was thinking of taking a year to teach English someplace where I could earn enough money to live off of until I break in with my novels. Now…well, I’m not so sure. I’d love to go back to the Middle East, or maybe someplace like Georgia on the TLG program, but Korea…I dunno.

As some of you know, I’m in a local Provo band. Right now, we’re just writing music, but it’s coming along quite well, and we’re hoping to start putting on shows in August. Except…that’s when I’d be leaving, if I were going to Korea. For a year.

Also, I’d miss out on some prime opportunities to build my writing career, like Worldcon, and that seems rather foolish if what I really want to do is be a writer.

The TLG program looks interesting because 1) it’s closer to the Middle East, geographically and culturally, 2) it’s much shorter, and 3) the program isn’t quite as rigorous. In short, it seems like a great way to test out whether I can juggle a TEFL career with my writing, whether I’m suited to TEFL, and whether dropping everything to travel for a while is really a good idea.

Trouble is, the program doesn’t pay much, so I wouldn’t be any better off financially once I get back to the states. Also, if I sign up now, I’d still be there through much of the fall, cutting me out of band stuff.

But if I do decide to stay in Utah for the medium term, I feel like I should at least get something out of it–like, say, a master’s degree. In something. Not sure what yet, but I’ll start looking into that ASAP.

Man, I can just imagine my parents cringing as they read this…

But I still haven’t nixed Korea as an option. The applications are still going through, and I plan on completing the online TEFL course this month. Perhaps finishing the course will help me find out if this is what I want to do. I don’t know.

But what I really want to do (besides go back to the Middle East) is write. And I’m not going to lose sight of that, no matter what happens.

Back in Mass

Mass = Massachusetts = “back east,” for all you unwashed Utahans!

My sister’s wedding is this weekend, so I’m back at my parents’ place helping them get everything set up. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow, but I’ve got my netbook and will probably get a couple good hours of writing in.

I managed to write a bit on the plane today, but not as much as I was hoping. My goal is still to finish Into the Nebulous Deep 1.1 by May 14th; I’ve got about 15k-20k left to go, and since I’m taking the next few weeks off to work on writing projects, I shouldn’t have any problems meeting that deadline.

Yesterday, I took the unedited manuscript of Genesis Earth and formatted it nice and pretty so my friend Laura could read it on her Kindle, and…man, it looks like a real book! There’s something about seeing your work in the actual form that people are going to read it in that is just…well, for lack of a better word, magical. It’s definitely motivated me to get GE up quickly, as well as Journey to Jordan. More on that in the next few days and weeks to come.

It’s getting late out here and I’d better get some sleep, but before I do, I want to put a plug in for my new favorite webcomic, The Zombie Hunters. Ross Wolfe, Quark’s renowned zombie expert, introduced me to the comic a couple months ago, and I have been totally hooked ever since.

The comic is set in our world after the zombie apocalypse, where a band of five thousand survivors struggles to rebuild civilization on an island that was previously the site of a major research campus. The zombie plague has a dormant phase, where the infected can live normal lives, but turn into zombies when they die.

The infected live in segregated barracks as second class citizens, but teams of them regularly venture out into the wastelands to salvage supplies from the zombie-infested ruins. The comic basically centers around one of these teams of zombie hunters; their struggles and challenges, their relationships with each other, and their hopes and dreams for the future.

The storytelling is fantastic, the characters are engaging and real, the post-apocalyptic setting dark, gritty, and yet totally immersive and frighteningly believable–man, it’s just awesome. And the longer it runs, the better it gets! I can’t wait to find out how Charlie the half-life fits in with his ability to communicate with the zombies, or to get the full backstory with Jenny and Milo. And I love the banter between Jenny and Sammie, her alcoholic sociopath best friend.

Right now, though, the main storyline is on hold while the author works through some business problems, but the short story is absolutely fantastic. I love her fantastic use of point of view–how she gets into the little boy’s head and shows the apocalypse unfold from his perspective. And the kid’s grisly end…man, zombies are even freakier when you never see their faces! I wouldn’t be surprised if I have nightmares tonight about it–I have in the past. Crazy awesome zombie nightmares, heh.

As a side note, may I point out what may quite possibly be the perfect weapon for the zombie apocalypse, the AA-12 shotgun. All it needs is a bayonet and like a bajillion clips of ammo. A must-have for any zombie contingency plan.

But yeah, let me just say I am in awe of The Zombie Hunters. Awesome, awesome story–every time it updates, I get immersed again in the post-apocalyptic world, and it is amazing. If I ever end up writing a zombie apocalypse story (which will probably involve starships and space travel in some fashion), I would be tickled if it’s even half as good as this excellent webcomic.

I Don’t Want to Kill You by Dan Wells

John Cleaver, teenage sociopath and demon hunter, has put his inner monster to work protecting his small town community from supernatural beings. But now, the head demon, known only as Nobody, has come to take him down.

As if that weren’t difficult enough, the most popular girl in John’s class, Marci, has taken a liking to him–and he soon finds that he likes her back. What’s more, she’s not as weirded out by his obsession with the string of murders in their town–in fact, she’s interested in them too.

Just as their young romance begins to blossom, however, a rash of teen suicides makes John wonder: why does he even try if the people he’s trying to protect are just going to throw their lives away anyways? To defeat Nobody, he must search within himself and find the answer.

This book was awesome–like, Return of the Jedi awesome–and I’m not just saying that because the author is a friend of mine. It brings the Serial Killer trilogy to a dramatic and satisfying conclusion. Dan Wells’s storytelling skills are amazing, and he puts them to good use throughout this book.

The thing I loved the most was probably how all the major characters had to sacrifice something huge for the people they loved in order to overcome the evil forces at work in their lives. And the demons–whoa, they were pretty freaky. Supernatural freaky, yes, but in a way that was frighteningly true to life–even more so than the previous demons in the series.

Wells has an excellent handle on character arcs, and he applies that here to the romance subplot with excellent results. The romantic aspect of the novel was both believable and gripping, and made the ending all the more emotional.

If anything, though, I wish he would have played up the love triangle a little more than he did. No spoilers, but there were a couple of shifts toward the end that felt a little abrupt. Not too much, but I thought it could have been done better.

This is definitely an urban fantasy, but one surprisingly close to the real world. Unlike Mr. Monster, where the supernatural aspect came in halfway as something of a shock, I thought the supernatural and real world elements in I Don’t Want to Kill You were blended almost perfectly. Not only was it clear from the beginning that both elements were going to be important, but the feedback loop between the two was handled extremely well. If I ever write urban fantasy, Dan Wells has certainly set a high standard to follow.

All in all, a great book, one I highly recommend. If you enjoy urban fantasy or superhero stories, you’ll probably love this book.