Joe Vasicek

The second to last post of the year

I’ve been figuring out what to say in my Obligatory New Year’s post–resolutions and all that. Before I do that, though, I wanted to give an update on recent goings-on.

First, the writing: I’m making excellent headway in the latest draft of Mercenary Savior, and should be finished by the end of next week. WAFH is coming along too, but at a much slower pace. It’s hard to juggle a good book that only needs a polish with a crappy book that needs a complete overhaul, because the one that needs the most work looks so much worse in comparison. Still, I’m making progress on both.

I just recently noticed, though, that I’ve spent the last two years working almost exclusively on Mercenary Savior. Whenever I took a break to work on something else, it was never more than a month or two before I jumped into another major revision of that project. I worry that that’s going to handicap me, especially as I reach the point of diminishing returns. Mercenary Savior is an awesome novel, and I totally stand by it, but I worry…well, I worry too much. Let’s just leave it at that.

Second: jobs! To my surprise, a number of places have been calling me in for interviews and such. My first pick would most likely be with the BYU Political Science Department, since I already know everyone there and would probably love it. However, a number of other opportunities have been opening up, which means (inshallah) that I’ll probably be employed by the end of next month. Woohoo!

In the mid- to long-term, though, I’m thinking very seriously about teaching abroad. I interviewed today with a program that places people in South Korea, and that could be quite interesting. If I choose to go through with it, I’d probably be shipping out in September, hopefully after completing a TEFL certification program. After working there for a year or two, I could probably land a much more lucrative job in the Gulf, which could be an interesting experience.

Then again, I could stay here in Utah, where I’m much more likely to find a wife…

But you know what? I’m starting to think that that’s a horrible reason to stay here in the bubble. I don’t need to live in Utah to find the right girl (or, as my dad says, for the right girl to find me). She could be anywhere.

And as for all that stuff about the odds being better out here, I’m starting to think that’s a bunch of crap. Yeah, there are a ton of young, available LDS women here in Utah–but there are also a ton of guys, and the competition has like a gazillion advantages on me. I mean, come on, I’m a writer–what have I got on a Marriott School graduate? Even a pizza can feed a family of four…

So maybe I should spend some serious time abroad, even if it does mean fewer dating opportunities. In the meantime, I need to renew my passport and get a job. And who knows what the future ultimately holds? Maybe I’ll stick around. Maybe…

The Obligatory Christmas Post

Just a quick post, because I figure I shouldn’t let Christmas go by this year without at least mentioning it in some way.

I’m not much of a Christmas person, and I think I get that from my Mom. I still remember the year when she suggested we stop doing presents altogether. That didn’t pass, of course, but as you can see in the photo, she successfully downsized the Christmas tree. Even I would never stoop so low.

In a lot of ways, though, I sympathize with her. The blatant commercialization of the holiday shocks and disgusts me. I find nothing redeemable about the Santa myth, and will teach my children not to believe it. Until Thanksgiving rolls around, I prefer to act as if Christmas doesn’t even exist.

But I’m not a Scrooge. The holidays are for family and traditions–for being with and appreciating each other, making fond memories, and be quirky together in that special, unique way that makes family what it is (for better or for worse).

When celebrated well, it’s also a time to step back from the grindstone and recharge the spiritual underpinnings of one’s faith–kind of like a Sabbath for the year. It’s getting increasingly difficult to balance that with all the secular noise, especially in this panicked, self-conscious economy–but hey, faith by definition is never easy.

Anyhow, I had a great Christmas, in spite of the fact that I didn’t go home.

Explanation: we have an arrangement worked out with my sisters’ in-laws, where we alternate Christmas and Thanksgiving. This year, Thanksgiving was for the Vasiceks to get together, while Christmas was for the Challises and the Laws.

And anyway, home isn’t a place, it’s the people you’re with. I spent Christmas with my sister here in Provo, and all her in-laws, and it was great. I managed to get a small present for everyone, and it was a lot of fun watching them open theirs. I didn’t get as many presents as perhaps I would have gotten at home, but I love everything I got and got more than I expected (an illustrated translation of One Thousand and One Nights, a novel by L.E. Modesitt Jr, and Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 album. Oh, and some money from home–thanks Pop!).

We spent the day lazing around, watching Northern Exposure (which is actually a really good TV show–or was, back in the 80s when it aired), playing around with our presents, eating dinner, and doing other stuff. The Laws tend to be laid back, and I like that. I feel at home with them.

We ended the day by playing Apples to Apples, and let me say, it is a much different game playing it with old people (aka non college students). The first round, I didn’t get a single card. The second round, I got “weird” and “unhealthy.” The third round, I got “patriotic,” “shallow,” and a mildly suggestive one which I’ve since forgotten. Steve should have chosen my card (“picking your nose”) when the word was “bold.” Connie skunked us all.

So yeah, that was Christmas. I wasn’t expecting it to be super awesome, but it was. Thanks to the Laws for letting me share the day with them!

And to finish off this Obligatory Christmas Post, here is an awesome Christmas video. Even though it’s not Christmas anymore, you need to watch it–now. You won’t regret it–or maybe you will, but in an awesome kind of way. Just watch it.

Once a Hero by Elizabeth Moon

Esmay Suiza never asked to be a hero. All she wanted was to leave her dysfunctional home and join the navy. But after surviving a mutiny and leading her spaceship to a most unlikely victory, everyone seems to be showering her with unwanted attention–or worse, examining her files for signs of command potential.

No, all she wants is to disappear–and now that her family has offered her a generous inheritance on her home world of Altiplano, she finds herself tempted to leave the stars behind and settle down for a while.

Little does she know, her family has hidden secrets from her–secrets from her past, which have the power to undo and destroy her. Unfortunately, being a hero has a price–and the trauma of combat has already unearthed things from her subconscious than she cannot keep buried any longer.

This was my first time reading Elizabeth Moon, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Moon is extremely good at portraying a complex, believable military culture; she was a Lieutenant in the Marines, and definitely knows how to do military SF right.

My favorite part of the book was the descriptions of Altiplano, and Esmay’s experience returning to her homeworld of Altiplano. Elizabeth Moon does an excellent job of creating a captivating world and transporting the reader there. I fell in love with Altiplano almost instantly–not only with the planet itself, but the culture and the people, the whole society. Excellent job.

Elizabeth Moon also does an excellent job developing her characters and giving them believable internal conflicts. The way she portrays Esmay’s PTSD is quite striking, and very interesting. Her struggles feel very real, and important too. I think this novel helped me to better understand those who suffer from similar traumatic experiences, and that was very meaningful.

Storywise, however, I had a few minor issues, most of them having to do with the plot. Things dragged a bit in the middle; when Esmay left her homeworld, I lost a sense of progression and felt that she was just wandering around.

When the antagonists came in–basically, a hostile army trying to capture her ship–I felt that Esmay solved her problems too easily, without any real try-fail cycles. It gave me the sense that Esmay was some kind of superhero girl–not quite a Mary Sue, but toeing the line.

And Esmay’s love interest…I didn’t really get into him at all. He seemed like a stereotypical damsel in distress, except with the sexes reversed. I heard once that in good romance stories, the girl readers want to be the female protagonist, and the guy readers want to be the male protagonist. Yeah…call me a chauvinist, but I never really wanted to be that guy.

I hate to be too critical, though, because Elizabeth Moon’s writing is quite good. She has an excellent grasp of character, and her ability to transport her readers to another time and place more than makes up for her shortcomings with plot and story structure. Also, I get the sense that this isn’t her best work.

In any case, if you’re a fan of military SF, you’ll probably enjoy this book. I enjoyed it, and I will certainly be reading more Elizabeth Moon in the future.

I don’t ask for much…

My future wife can do WHATEVER she wants–drag me up to Alaska or Antarctica to get married, make us move in next door to her parents, force me to hold down a real job until the writing takes off…

…I just ask that they play this song at our wedding.

“The Class That Wouldn’t Die” is up!

Just a heads up: the latest issue of Mormon Artist magazine is out, and my article about BYU’s “class that wouldn’t die” is in it! What’s more, Orson Scott Card himself commented on it. Squeeeee!!!

If you’d like to read the full article, you can find it here. Mormon Artist is published online for free, so be sure to check out the rest of the issue too.

A huge thanks to all the people who helped me out with the research–and an apology to those I should have gotten to, but ran out of time and space to include them. My goal in writing this was to collect as many oral histories and primary sources as I could find, and put it in a context where the people who were there could tell the story themselves. I hope I’ve done that without making too many factual errors, but if I have, please let me know.

Also, I would like to personally thank everyone who was a part of Xenobia and the class that wouldn’t die–the people who started LTUE, Leading Edge, and Quark, which have become the bedrock of BYU’s thriving sf&f community. Thank you so much–all of this stuff has greatly impacted my life, helping me to connect with like-minded friends and to grow tremendously as a writer. We really do stand on the shoulders of everyone who’s come before, so thank you!

Squeeeeeee!!!!!

Encouraging realizations

So today I realized something about my writing process that encouraged me quite a bit. With every project so far that I’ve finished, revised, and polished (or will soon be polishing), I went through a depressing period where the draft absolutely sucked and I questioned whether I was just wasting my time with the whole project. I went through it with Genesis Earth, I went through it with Mercenary Savior, and I’m going through it right now with Worlds Away from Home.

None of that is new, of course; what’s new is the realization that this phase is an essential part of my personal writing process. In other words, it’s not a distressing thing that I’m going through this phase–it’s actually a sign that things are normal. The story has potential but needs a significant overhaul, so until I complete that overhaul I’m only going to see how much it sucks.

The trick, of course, is keeping momentum. I’ve found that if I consistently write 2,500 words per day, my mind is so absorbed in the story that I can make good headway on it. I only revised through about 1.4k today, but I cut off at least another 2k of useless fat, so I suppose that works.

I also submitted Genesis Earth to two agents, so overall, today was quite productive. I’ll probably count those as my submissions for this week, to allow people time off for the holidays. Of course, I won’t stop writing!

Story Notebook #4

Alright, it’s been too long since the last time I posted any story ideas here on this blog, so I thought I’d go back to my old notebooks and post a few of them here. Currently, we’re on notebook #4, which basically covers the second half of 2009.

And so, without further ado…here goes!

A society in which infanticide, up to the first two years, is not considered a crime (since infants are not conscious in the same way as adults and children)

Youch–talk about a dystopia! Which makes me wonder, what kind of a society would develop this belief? Probably not one that values human life–or rather, one that somehow considers adults to be more “human” than young children.

As a direct result of this society’s system of values, there’s probably going to be a lot more promiscuity–or perhaps the promiscuity is what causes this belief to be engendered in the first place? It reminds me of an ancient Carthaginian brothel, where hundreds of baby bones were found stuffed in the narrow alley between the brothel and the next building over.

Blegh–icky stuff! Which is to say, it’s probably good story material. 🙂

A near-future dystopia in which the extras in movies (made in overpopulated developing countries) literally act out battle scenes, because hollywood studios can afford to pay for the loss of life

I got this idea from a comment by Dave Wolverton at a con, in which he said that in China, the maximum fine for negligent homicide is $10,000. This is one of the reasons why so many movie studios do business there–if their extras die or get injured, they aren’t held nearly as liable as in the United States.

Of course, if the maximum fine is $10,000, why not put that in a deposit up front and have the workers fill out a form indicating who should get the money if they die? You can then have gladiatorial movies and TV shows, where people actually die. It sounds sick, but I’ll bet you could find a significant audience for that kind of thing.

Economically speaking, it’s a win-win-win situation. The studios save on safety equipment and profit from the relatively cheap labor costs; the workers benefit whether they live or die, because either way, they’re getting paid much more than they would ever make otherwise; and the host country benefits, because the survivors can then be conscripted to form an elite corps of warriors.

The only real downside is the utter moral depravity of it all–but hey, we’ve already crossed that moral line so many times, what’s to keep us from crossing it again?

A time travel device that allows collection of data from the future without affecting causality–how would this change political science?

By “without affecting causality,” I think I meant that the time travel device itself wouldn’t cause any huge problems–that one could use it to observe without interaction, something akin to Orson Scott Card’s Postwatch. And of course, because I was so deeply engrossed in school at the time, the first application that came to mind was political science.

It would certainly lend a degree of credibility to the science, something which it currently does not enjoy. It would probably also lead to fierce debates about fate vs. free will between the positivists and the interpretivists–something that has already been ongoing for some time.

My second novel (Genesis Earth) was, in some ways, a response to that debate.

A character who always has the latest liberal candidate’s bumper sticker on the same corner of his/her car, so that it builds up over time.

Interesting character quirk–though since it could only really makes sense in our world, I would never write about it. Stories set in the real world bore me.

An MMORPG for orcs and elves where they play as humans

Check it out! I’m a level 80 corporate CEO with the ability to cast ‘complete financial collapse’ and totally screw you out of a job!

Zombie insects

Oh noes! Even worse if humans can become infected.

Sentient planets

Already done; the book is called Solaris.

Golfing on the Moon or Mars

This…would actually make a fairly awesome short story.

Were-squirrels!

Sounds like something Terry Pratchett would write if/when he parodied the urban fantasy genre.

What if all of us are characters in someone’s story?

God help us all!

A psychic agency that allows you to instant message dead relatives

Personally, I’d never stop wondering whether it’s just an elaborate hoax.

And that’s all for notebook #4! Don’t worry–I swear I’m not as screwed up as these story ideas make me out to be.

Out of it

Man, I feel like I’ve been so out of it recently. I’ve been getting up around 9 am or 10 am every day, going to bed every night around 2 am or 3 am, and running around so much that I hardly seem to have time to write. Life is good, and between plasma and phone book deliveries I’m earning enough to get by, but my days are very unstructured and that’s not good for my writing.

So here’s what I need: a stable job that facilitates my writing. For the past year, I’ve been working random odd jobs and temporary jobs, and while they pay enough to get by (just barely), the variability and lack of long-term security is just too much to juggle on top of writing. I’ve got to find something else.

Trouble is, I’m afraid that if I settle for a dead end job, it’ll put such a stigma on me that I won’t be able to get a better job later if the writing career doesn’t take off. I’m pretty confident that I’ll eventually be able to make a living off my writing, but I don’t know how late or how soon that’s going to happen. The last thing I want is to end up as a wage-slave without a future.

Anyway, despite the lack of daily structure, I really love the flexibility that this phone book delivery job is giving me. Pay is on a per route basis (like newspaper delivery), and the supervisor is really awesome and easy to work with.

If I want, I can take the mornings easy, do personal chores for a while, deliver a couple hundred phone books and write in the evenings. That’s basically what I’ve been doing these past three weeks.

I really hate going to bed and waking up late, though. That’s not sustainable. If I come to my writing only at the very end of the day, it’s going to be a wash. I might get a thousand words in, but if I’m not consistently crossing the 2.5k threshold every day, my heart really just isn’t in to it.

In any case, WAFH 2.0 is coming along fairly well. I’ve got a good idea where I want the story to go, and the characters seem to be working out. Also, I think I’ve found my big reason for wanting to write this story–I’ll write more about that in a later post.

This next draft isn’t going to be perfect, but hopefully I can get rid of all the major story problems (and there are a TON of major story problems!). I suppose my goal at this point is to make it good enough to send out to my first readers. The rough draft is so full of crap, I wouldn’t let anyone read it if they paid me. Blegh!

Also, I know it’s only been a month, but I think I’m going to do another cover to cover revision of Mercenary Savior in the next few weeks. I really want to get it polished enough to start sending it out–preferably by the end of the holidays–so that’s probably going to take priority. If it goes as fast as Genesis Earth 5.0, I should have the entire manuscript done in about three or four weeks.

And another thing–I’m going to set a new goal: submit at least one thing to an agent/editor every week. Right now, I tend to go on splurges where I’ll send out half a dozen queries, then sit around for a month without really doing much to try to break in. I feel like I need to be more consistent on that front, because submitting is definitely one of my greatest weaknesses. They say everything comes better with practice, so I might as well send stuff out more regularly.

Anyhow, that’s how things are going right now–disjointed and all over the place, but somehow things still get done. I just wish I could get more done, but who doesn’t? Anyhow, there’s always next week–may it be better than the last.

Getting back into things

So yesterday, I wrote through 4k words in WAFH 2.0 without even realizing it. I didn’t feel very productive, because I only did about 500 words at a time before something came up and I got distracted, but by the end of the day, ended up accomplishing a lot. That was a pleasant surprise.

In terms of my writing, I’ve been really out of things since Thanksgiving. I finished Genesis Earth 5.0 right before the vacation and started outlining WAFH 2.0 immediately after, but…man, the rough draft REALLY sucks. Like, sucks so bad I’ll have to completely throw out part III and start from scratch.

Fortunately, I think I’ve got a good idea what to do. I’ve outlined about eighteen complete plots and subplots, so that’ll probably help out with keeping things tight. The rough draft has a lot of shotgun writing, which means I have a lot of stuff to cut out–and now that I see where things are going, I know how to cut it.

One thing that worries me, however, is that I don’t have a strong driving reason to write this book–or maybe I do, but I just haven’t noticed it yet. I’m hoping that’s the case, but I don’t yet know, and it’s really bugging me.

For Genesis Earth, it was the first line (“Earth was a ghost that haunted me”) and the cryo scene. For Mercenary Savior, it was the ending, and the way it resonated with an old Western I saw as a kid. With both projects, I got to a point of desperation somewhere between the first and second drafts where I wanted to throw everything out and never work on it again–but with both projects, that driving reason kept me going until I made it work.

With WAFH, however, I’m not sure what it is that’s driving me to write it. For now, though, I’ll just press through until I find out. I really hope I’m not just wasting my time writing this (because the rough draft sucks REALLY bad) but past experience has told me to ignore my own self-doubts at this phase.

Which reminds me: this week’s Writing Excuses podcast is really amazing. I just listened to it an hour or two ago, and the advice this time around was exactly what I needed to hear. Brandon’s advice in particular is very good: he basically says to stop worrying and enjoy what you’re doing.

So do I enjoy all of this? In spite of all the angst I’ve spilled, I think I can say that I do. When you’ve got a good story, and you know that it’s good, and you tell it in a way that moves someone else in a personally meaningful way–man, there’s nothing that compares to that. I look back now on stuff I used to think was absolute drivel, and I’m amazed. It takes persistence and drive and a little bit of crazy, but once you can get to that point, it makes everything you did to get there worth it.

The only thing now is to find out why WAFH is worth writing, and to hang onto those reasons at all costs until the story comes into its own. Wish me luck!

Looking for a life experience

This week, I got hit by some good news and some bad news.

The good news was that I got a short term seasonal job, delivering phone books. That should keep me solvent for the rest of the month, at least until I can find something slightly more permanent.

The bad news? I heard back from the company with the wilderness job, and it turns out I didn’t get it.

So now I’ve got to figure out what to do with my life for the next year. My writing career, as always, is plan A, but that’s more of a mid- to long-term thing. And honestly, that’s how I want it.

I feel that I need to do something big–to go on some kind of adventure. I’ve been working hard to hone my craft, but I feel that I need to acquire some kind of significant life experience, not only to boost my writing, but just to grow as a person. It’s tempting to look for a comfort zone and camp out in it, but I don’t think that would be the best thing for me to do right now.

Before I graduated, I decided not to go to graduate school yet for a few reasons. First, I was sick of school, and felt that I needed a break. Second, I didn’t know what to go in for, and didn’t want to go to grad school just to postpone figuring things out.

Third, I wanted to get out of the cloistered halls of the university and gain some real world experience. I’d spent my whole life up to that point in academia, and was sick and tired of being sheltered from the “real world.” I wanted to get out and see what things were really like on the other side of the ivy.

For the past eight months, I’ve been bouncing around in Utah, working odd jobs to get by. It’s a different set of stresses and problems, and while I can’t say I’m unhappy, I certainly can’t say that I’m fulfilled. Being unemployed is about as unfulfilling as you can get and still be breathing.

I could probably find and hold down a graveyard job until my writing career takes off, but somehow that doesn’t seem much better. I don’t just need a job to facilitate my writing–I need a major life experience to broaden my perspective on things. I was hoping the wilderness job would provide me with both of those, but unfortunately that’s no longer an option.

So what next? Here’s an idea: maybe I could go abroad and teach English for a year.

I used to joke with all my friends that if I didn’t get the wilderness job, I’d probably leave the country and go on an adventure–but really, why not? A chance to see the world, use the teaching and language learning skills from my degree, and acquire new skills that might come in handy later on. Plus, when I come back, I’ll sure have a lot of interesting things to write about.

The big question in my mind is what I need to do to get ready. I suppose the best thing would be a TEFL certificate–I could probably get one of those in a month or two through online classes. But…is that really the best path? And what is the best program to go through? A couple of friends of mine who have taught English abroad for the past couple of years say you don’t need a certificate to get a job, but they were working with kids, not adults. And for the English teaching jobs in the Middle East (especially the gulf), you really do need certification.

So I guess I still need to think it through. Right now, my top three destinations would probably be Japan/Korea (for the earning potential), Saudi Arabia (for the Middle East experience), or the Czech Republic (for the chance to connect with my roots).

I don’t know, though. I’ve still got to weigh the pros and cons. I’ll probably do that in a later post–but for now, that’s what I’m thinking about. And the more I think about it, the more attractive it becomes…