Author: Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek is the author of more than twenty science fiction books, including the Star Wanderers and Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus. He claims Utah as his home.

Worldcon 2011: Friday

Wow, it feels like the second day of Worldcon was forever ago.  Usually, Friday is the first real day of a convention, but since Thursday was the first full day of Worldcon, that wasn’t the case.

I don’t remember a whole lot from it, but there were a few really awesome panels.

In the morning, I went to a social networking panel with Tee Morris and Cory Doctorow, among others.  Awesome, fast paced discussion–pure gold, every second of it.  The main takeaway I got was to try out everything, but only stick with the things I actually enjoy.  There are lots and lots of ways to use social networking tools, and if something is compelling but not enjoyable, it’s not much better than a life-killing addiction.  Also, Facebook is the equivalent of high fructose corn syrup.

In the afternoon, I went to a panel on romantic elements in science fiction, with Louis Master Bujold on it, among others.  She made perhaps the most interesting point I heard all weekend: that in romance, women typically write about love and life, whereas men typically write about love and death.  SO TRUE.  It happens all the time in my own work, to the point where you can set your watch by it.

After a long and tiring day, I took off a couple hours before the parties just to decompress (and also blog about Thursday, as you may have noticed).  Got caught up on David Gaughran‘s blog, which as usual had some interesting analysis about the latest news in the ebook revolution.  And then…well, let’s just say I got into a little bit of a discussion with a senior editor at Tor about ebooks and whether it’s a good idea now to self publish.  His parting shot: “You’re not going to win this argument!” To which I wanted to respond: “I don’t care about winning it with you; I care about winning it with the readers.”

Seriously, when it came to ebooks and epublishing, almost every editor, agent, and author at the convention either had deer in the headlights syndrome or was in outright denial.  It’s gotten to a point where they can’t ignore it, but literally everyone who brought up the subject on a panel either dismissed all successful indie writers as outliers, or brought up the flood-of-crap argument that so many people have already debunked.  I don’t think the publishers are quite as stupid as the record labels in the late 90s…but seriously, they aren’t much better.

Not that I was purposefully trying to be antagonistic.  I only brought up the subject with that particular editor because I knew I didn’t have a chance with him.  For the most part, all I did at the con was listen and observe.  But man–there’s a lot of willful ignorance out there.  And after a while, that made me a little disillusioned with the whole convention…but more on that later.

Suffice it to say, Friday was a long and eventful day that went by so quickly I’ve forgotten almost everything else that happened.

Worldcon 2011: Thursday

Wow, the last couple days have been packed with awesome con-stuff, but I’ve got a short break so I thought I’d blog about it.

Thursday was great, attended a few panels but mostly just wandered around meeting people.  I’m a little surprised with how many people read this blog.  Got Brandon to sign my Kindle, and he was really supportive about my decision to epublish.  I seem to be one of the only Utah writers going full-steam with indie publishing, but a handful of others are considering it, though for now they’re in the minority (which surprises me).

Anyhow, Thursday had a couple of really notable panels.  The first was on faith and science fiction, and had both Eric James Stone and Moshe Feder on it, among others.  Excellent discussion, though a couple of the commenters tried to derail it.

I found it surprising that the panelists didn’t have a good answer to my question: how do you reconcile far future sf with millenialist religions?  That’s exactly what I’m trying to do with my Gaia Nova universe–create a far future epic that isn’t incompatible with the major western religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc).  From the after-panel discussion, I got a strong recommendation to read C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy, so I’ll definitely be checking that out soon.

The other notable Thursday panel I attended was on ebook art, and featured John Picacio and Lou Anders, among others.  John feels pretty strongly that indie writers are seriously devaluing cover illustration, and within the first ten minutes someone in the audience literally told him to f___ off!  Wow, talk about tension–but even though it almost fell apart, the panel turned out to be very enlightening.

Let me just take a moment to say that I’m very impressed with what Lou Anders is doing over at Pyr.  While the rest of the publishing world seems to have their heads in the sand when it comes to the ebook revolution, Lou is one of the few who sees it more as an opportunity than a threat.  I’m not currently looking for a publisher, mostly because I’m waiting to see how things shake out, but I would be very surprised if Pyr is one of the publishers that goes under.

The parties in the evening were pretty good–as always, the Tor party was literally packed.  Brandon saw a group of us clustering together, so he broke us up and sent us off to talk with editors and agents.  He tried to point me out to an agent, but…you know, I’m not really looking for one right now.  Brandon keeps telling me not to believe DWS when it comes to agents, and while I’m certainly not fundamentally opposed to them, I feel that I can better build my career by going in other directions.  At some point in the future, maybe, but for now…not so much.

Speaking of Dean, I spent the whole evening hunting for him, then gave up around midnight only to find out the next day that he showed up at the SFWA suite fifteen minutes after I left (nooo!). And now that it’s 9pm in Reno and the parties are just getting started, I think I’ll cut this blog post here and recap Friday sometime later.

See you around!

Worldcon 2011: Wednesday

Just a quick update from Renovation before I crash for the night.

We left Provo pretty early–about 6:30, actually–and met up with Eric in Eagle Mountain.  The drive to Reno was pretty long, but we had some awesome geeky conversations along the way.  My favorite: how to successfully conduct an alien invasion.

So we rolled into town around 4:30, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, and hiked down to the convention center to register and wander around aimlessly until finding people we knew.  At least, that’s what I did, and even though it’s a big con (about 4k to 5k people) it didn’t take long to run into a bunch of writing friends from Utah.  The cool part: they had cornered Moshe Feder and were having a delightful conversation with him.  Awesome guy, Moshe Feder.  Very gracious and fun to talk with.

After that, I went with the gang to Tachyon Press’s panel.  It was pretty good; a little dry, but still interesting.  Kristy is really hoping to land an editing job with one of these companies, so she was more into it than I was, though I did ask a few questions about epublishing.  I asked Moshe too, and my general vibe is that people in the traditional system are still in a “wait and see” mode.

So then we all went to IHOP, which was fun; it was good to catch up a bit, as well as relax and enjoy some good food.  I went back to the con alone and browsed the freebie tables a bit, but there didn’t seem to be too much happening other than parties for the various committees trying to get their city voted for next year’s Worldcon.  However, there seem to be a lot of movies showing in the late evening hours here (something I haven’t seen at a con before), so in the future I’ll have to try that out too.  In any case, it was a pretty relaxing and uneventful evening.

Tomorrow is PACKED, though, and by packed I mean there’s waaay too much stuff going on for me to hit it all.  But out of all those, the one panel that I absolutely WILL attend is “Making It As a Writer” with Dean Wesley Smith, among others.  That one looks fascinating.

Other than that, I don’t have much to say.  The convention is just getting started, so there’s not a whole lot to report…yet.  I’ll keep you posted as the good stuff happens.  In the meantime, sleeeeeep.

Worldcon in T-minus 10, 9, 8…

So I just finished packing for Worldcon, including 4 apples, 1 lb ginger snaps, and enough PBJ material to last the weekend (because fast food is disgusting and expensive).  I’ll be leaving tomorrow at 6:30 am with Cavan to pick up Logan in Orem, then meet up with Eric in Eagle Mountain and head out for Reno, hopefully before 7:30.

This will be my first time at Worldcon, and I’m pretty stoked!  It looks pretty freaking huge–Charlie sent me the PDF of the pocket program, and it had maybe twenty times the number of rooms for panels, workshops…man, it’s going to be hard not to get lost.  Also, I don’t think they’ll be giving away free books like at World Fantasy, though I’ll keep an eye out for whatever I can find!

I don’t have any specific goals, but here is what I would like to do:

  • Meet up with the other Utah writers (there are a lot of us!).
  • Network with other indie writers and book bloggers.
  • Gather as much info on ebooks and the publishing industry as possible.
  • Discover up-and-coming short fiction markets and what they’re looking for.
  • Gauge the general zeitgeist of the science fiction & fantasy community.
  • Throw something at Brandon.
  • Have fun!

That’s just about it.  See you in Reno!

Sholpan 2.0 is finished!

Today I finished the second draft of the novella Sholpan, only two days after the deadline I set for myself.  Here are the stats:

ms pages: 173
words: 37,466
file size: 94 KB
parts: 5
start date: 1 Aug 2011
end date: 15 Aug 2011

I decided to divide it into parts because I read somewhere that novellas aren’t typically divided into chapters, and I felt that foregoing chapter divisions would give it more of a sense of unity.

Still, I divided it into five parts, which essentially function as very large chapters.  I did this because it seemed that the story needed it, to better develop conflict and theme, as well as the transitions and turning points.

Like I’ve said in the earlier posts, this is a “companion novella,” which means that it repeats one of the story lines from the novel with additional scenes that (hopefully) elaborate and flesh out that particular story line.  Ideally, this will entice readers of the novella to pick up the full-length novel, and give readers of the novel a satisfying experience by using the new scenes to cast everything else in a new light.

By my entirely non-scientific calculations, Sholpan contains about 80% repeated material from the novel (with a little touching up and fleshing out to get more inside of Stella’s head) and 20% entirely new material, most of it in the form of flashbacks to Stella’s life before she was captured and enslaved by the Hameji.  It ends about halfway through Stella’s story arc from Bringing Stella Home, and includes one of the major twists, but hopefully that won’t spoil too much.

In terms of story, I think there are some subtle deviations between Stella’s arc in the novel, and Stella’s arc in the novella.  Even though the novella ends just after one of the novel’s major shifts, the ending felt very satisfying–almost a little too much.  Still, it’s good for the story to be complete in itself, and there are enough loose ends that I think it will drive interest in the novel.

Anyhow, I’ve sent the project out to a couple of alpha readers, just to get a sense for whether or not I’m totally off base.  If all goes well there, I’ll send it out to my copy editor and get it up for sale sometime in mid-September.  I haven’t tried out the $.99 price point yet, so this will be a good test case to see how it works.

For those of you who are interested, here’s the cover:

And that’s about it.  I’m leaving the day after next for Worldcon, so I’ll do a post on that before I head out.  Probably won’t write much this week, but hopefully the con will help me make connections, pick up a few pointers, and get a good feel for the current zeitgeist in the science fiction and fantasy genres.  More on that to come.

News, a correction, and an awesome AvB remix

Today I was supposed to finish the second draft of Sholpan, but I moved apartments this weekend, so everything got thrown completely out of whack.  I’m all moved into my new place now (with some awesome Quarkie roommates), but Sholpan is going to have to wait until Monday.

Fortunately, I’ve only got a couple of new scenes to write, then touch up the rest to make sure it fits the novella storyline.  I got in touch with my copy editor, and he should be able to have them for me by mid-September.  If all goes well, I’ll send it out to a couple of my first readers to give it a pass, make the fixes, and then send it out to Josh and have it up about a month from now.

I’ve gotten some amazing responses for “Memoirs of a Snowflake” in the past week, and it’s gotten almost 2,000 downloads on Amazon so far.  Not bad!  However, while rereading it, I noticed an error: in the author’s note, I said that I wrote the story in December of 2008, when really it was 2007.  I must have been thinking “winter of 2008” when I wrote it the first time.  In any case, I’ve made the corrections, so it should be up on Amazon in 24 hours, and all the other sites before the end of the month (since I distribute to them through Smashwords).

Also, another piece of encouraging news: the boss at the temp job I’ve been working the past few months wants to hire me!  If that works out, I should have steady work at least through into 2012.  I’m hoping they’ll let me work part time, since that would help me juggle the writing career a lot better, but this is their busy season so I might have to work 40+ hour weeks for a while.  Still, it’s better than starving.

Which reminds me: my first royalty check from Amazon comes in next month, and to celebrate, I’m going to crack open that bottle of Martinelli’s from Charlie and throw a small party.  More on that later.

Finally, I found this the other day while trawling youtube for good trance tunes.  It’s a remix of “Are We Human?” by the Killers, done by Armin Van Buuren.  Everything Armin touches seems to turn to gold, and this is no exception.  Check it out!

NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy

In case you didn’t know, NPR just put together a list of the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of all time.  The list had a panel of judges who vetted nominations, but the voting was public and turnout–over 60,000–was pretty high.

I usually don’t like top 100 lists, but this one did a pretty good job representing the genre.  I recognized about 2/3rds of the titles, and most of my own personal favorites were included.

There were a few notable exceptions, however.  David Gemmell wasn’t represented at all–a travesty of the highest proportions.  Neither was C.J. Cherryh, which I find very surprising.  Robert Charles Wilson has certainly written some books worthy of the list, and Dave Wolverton’s On My Way to Paradise–which, I would argue, is one of the best science fiction novels ever written–was notably absent.

Also, a few of the titles were further down on the list than I would have put them.  The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin came in at #78, while I would have put it at least in the top 20.  A Canticle for Leibowitz did better at #35, but was it really an inferior book to The Handmaid’s Tale?  Come on, people.

One thing I don’t think this list represents well (or top 100 lists in general) is the way in which sf&f fandom has split into dozens of communities and tribes, almost like Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands.  Before science fiction went mainstream, it was possible to follow all the various titles and developments.  Now, however, there’s so much out there that it’s impossible to be fully cognizant of everything.

I think fandom has split into some very distinct communities clustered around the popular authors and sub-genres, and there’s not a whole lot of overlap between them.  None of them are large enough to spawn an entirely new genre (with the possible exception of paranormal romance), but lumping them all into science fiction & fantasy can be a bit problematic.

That said, I think this is a pretty good list.  What do you think?

Soundtrack for an untitled book

I’ve got this great idea for a novel, with a rough plot outline, an awesome ending, setting and characters all worked out, even the soundtrack–but no title.

I enjoy making soundtracks for my novels, but this is the first time I’ve made one before writing the first draft.  Usually, my first drafts are so all over the place that I end up hating whatever music I try to associate with my work–that, or the feel of the book ends up being so different from the feel of the soundtrack that I just have to abandon it.

In spite of all this, I couldn’t really help myself from putting together a playlist for my next big project, a Gaia Nova novel combining characters from Bringing Stella Home and Desert Stars.  Here it is:

For me, soundtracks are all about the emotion that a story evokes.  I’m going for a tense and gritty feel, with heart-rending losses and soul-crushing defeats interspersed with poignant moments of personal triumph.

The really cool thing is that the soundtrack has helped me out a ton with the outlining process.  I’ve spent a lot of time in the past month hiking in the mountains around Provo, just listening to music and thinking about this story.  Whenever I put on the soundtrack, something would click and I’d see exactly what the story needed.  I kid you not, all of the plot twists and big reveals came to me while listening to this music.

Now if only I could come up with a title…

Quick update

Just an update before I go to bed (and hopefully don’t sleep in like this morning).

My writing’s tapered off a bit this past month, partially because I’ve got a lot on my plate (Worldcon, online TEFL course, moving apartments, working full time, etc), but also because I’m between projects and not totally absorbed in any one.

I’m hoping to finish Sholpan by the end of the week, but that isn’t going to require more than 8k words total.  At the same time, I’m finding it hard to keep myself engaged with that project.  Today, for example, I rebelled a bit and worked on the next Gaia Nova book instead, which doesn’t yet have a title.  Had a blast, but only managed about 800 words.

My writing productivity took a huge dip in the end of July as I got Bringing Stella Home ready to publish, dropping down to between 500 and 1,000 words per day.  I probably won’t be able to raise that significantly until after Worldcon, and even then, I’ll have to juggle a full-time job for probably another month or two (but hey, a job’s a job; I’m not complaining).

Thing is, I really, really, REALLY want to work on this untitled project–so much that I’m treating it as procrastination when I have other stuff to write.  I’m also worried that if I leave off on that project for too long, I’ll lose sight of it.  That’s why I’m juggling it with Sholpan right now, but I think I can handle it, especially since Sholpan should be finished in just a week or two.

I also got an email from a fan (a fan!) asking about Edenfall.  Right now, I don’t have any concrete plans, but I’m hoping to finish the first draft sometime in October/November (after polishing Desert Stars), and have it ready for publication sometime in 2012.  If enough people ask about it, though, I may bump it up in the queue; it all depends.

Other than that, I had a great idea yesterday for a blog series.  It came while I was thinking about my dreams for the future, and the thought came that I should blog about them  But I don’t want it to be just about me; I want to share my thinking about the future and how I’ve come to develop my goals and plans, so that my many friends who are in similar circumstances can glean something useful.

I’ll probably start that in a day or two.  But now…sleep.

Breaking the Top 10, and a big thank you

As I’m writing this, “Memoirs of a Snowflake” holds the #8 spot in the Kindle Store for the general short story category — #150 overall.  Almost 1,000 people have downloaded it since it went free over the weekend, and it’s already garnered some fantastic reviews!

All this positive attention makes me want to thank all those who have taken the time to post reviews of my work, so I thought I’d do that here.

Specifically, I’d like to thank L. Christensen for the early 5-star review of Genesis Earth, and her very favorable reviews of my other work.  Full disclosure: L. Christensen is one of my first readers; however, I did not solicit any of her reviews–she posted them on her own.  Also, I’d like to thank Katie Armstrong for the other 5-star review of Genesis Earth–I have no idea who you are (well, a vague idea maybe), but thank you!

Another reviewer who’s been very kind is EA Younker over at goodreads.  She’s posted some glowing 5-star reviews for “Memoirs of a Snowflake” and “Decision LZ1527” on that site, as well as a more critical but still encouraging 3-star review for “From the Ice Incarnate.” Thanks for taking the time to read my work!  I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Over on Smashwords, Ernest Winchester posted a nice 5-star review of “Decision LZ1527,” only a couple hours after I uploaded it.  More recently, Michelle Glorioso and Annie B posted some extremely gratifying reviews of “Memoirs of a Snowflake.” Thanks so much!

Of course, not all the reviews have been glowingly positive. “From the Ice Incarnate” has garnered some criticism from readers who feel that it was missing something, either sufficient character depth or a satisfying ending.  I appreciate the feedback; short stories aren’t my forte, so I’ll be sure to keep that in mind as I work on my short form.  Also, Genesis Earth has garnered a couple of critical yet well-reasoned reviews, most notably from the review site Science Fiction Addiction.  Once again, thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully.  And thanks to all the other generally positive reviews which I haven’t mentioned specifically here.

So far, Bringing Stella Home hasn’t gotten any reviews, so if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, I would appreciate it very much if you would take the time to do that.  In the meantime, thanks for all your support!