Hameji Cycle – Page 33 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Book Festival and other updates

So last Friday, there was a book fair at the Provo Library. I only heard about it the night before from Facebook, but there were almost twenty authors on the guest list, so I figured it would be a good place to go to meet other writers. I wasn’t mistaken!

I biked up to the library just as Brandon Sanderson was walking in. We chatted for a while, caught up on stuff since the last time I took his class. I almost got to walk into the author’s only lounge with him, but one of the staff stopped me. One of these days, though…one of these days!

I also ran into Dan Wells, who remembered me from World Fantasy and gave me a very nice compliment: he said I was very good at approaching people, especially at conventions. Talked about the different cons this year; according to Dan, Dragoncon is going to be huge this year, since Worldcon is in Australia and World Fantasy is in Ohio. I have a friend in Atlanta–I’ll have to look into attending that.

Brandon Sanderson, Clint Johnson, Mette Ivie Harrison, and J. Scott Savage did a panel on writing fantasy. Fortunately, I had my mp3 player on me and was able to record it. If you would like to listen to it, you can find it here:

Fantasy Panel, Provo Children’s Book Festival (15 May 2010)

Clint had some interesting advice for me after the panel; he asked about the books I’ve written and said I should submit them to YA agents/editors as well as mainstream adult agents/editors. Apparently, Genesis Earth and Mercenary Savior could work as YA, since 1) they’re about (relatively) young protagonists having coming-of-age experiences and learning how they want to live their lives, and 2) they don’t have the sense of nostalgia that adults often have when they think about their childhood.

So that was the Provo Children’s Book Festival. Let me just say, this is one of the reasons why I love Utah: the writing scene for fantasy/sf/YA is HUGE. Tons of writers, tons of readers, local writing events all the time–it’s great.

In other updates, I got a personalized rejection from Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! It was a pretty long one, too. The assistant editor said the writing was pretty good, but it felt too much like a novel. Hehe…confession, it was part of a novel. But that’s awesome that he thought the writing was good!

Besides that, he gave a lot of suggestions as to formatting, referring me to this site for detailed ms instructions. I didn’t think most editors would mind Times New Roman, but if it’s an issue even for a few of them, I should probably just switch to Courier–no editor is going to fault me for using Courier.

Besides all that, I’m well on my way to finishing Mercenary Savior 3.0 before CONduit. My goal right now is to finish it next Tuesday and spend Wednesday and Thursday sending it out. After CONduit, I plan on starting Hero in Exile (except the name will change), and I have a TON of great ideas for it. Funny how sometimes in order to finish a book, you need to write another one first.

Untitled

Man, I don’t write for this blog as much as I should.

Life is going well. I just recently got a part time job doing telephone surveys; hopefully, it will help tide things over until I can get something better. Between that and donating plasma, I should be able to pay the bills for the next couple of months.

I’ve also been writing quite a bit, hitting between 2k and 4k words per day. At this rate, Mercenary Savior 3.0 should be finished by the end of next week. That’s good, because I’m excited to start submitting it. I’ve already got Genesis Earth making the rounds, but the sooner I can get another project out there, the better.

For my next project after , I want to recycle Hero in Exile (ugh, it needs a new title) and turn that into a complete novel. I have a lot of ideas for it, but it will require some research, which may delay the actual start date.

For example, the main character (who I’m going to rename) has this major conflict where he’s trying to go home. As a young boy, his parents put him in an escape pod that crash landed on the planet, where he was raised by the locals. As the writer, I’m going to need to know about adoptions, know a handful o f adoption stories to pattern things off of, and maybe read a couple of essays on the meaning of “home.”

As another example, one of the major themes I want to get across is the struggle to maintain personal moral integrity in a morally corrupt world. I probably won’t have to look too far for that–being Mormon has given me lots of opportunities for research there–but I need to do a lot more to be aware of that particular conflict. When you’re slogging away, it’s very easy to focus too much on plot and no enough on the rest.

Probably the biggest preparation is going to be working through the character motivations, and that inevitably means building a background, since motivations grow out of the character’s history and background. But that’s going to involve a fair degree of pre-writing, which I may or may not be able to do before I start page one.

And that’s another scene; I’ve got to completely revamp the beginning. What I have now involves the main character staring out over the desert just before a sandstorm. Picturesque, but essentially navel gazing with little real character development. Instead, I want to show him thinking or doing something that reveals the central, most important aspect of his character, the way Brandon Sanderson did it in Elantris.

So anyways, lots of work to look forward to, in terms of writing that is. Other kinds of work…well, it’s good to have a sense of security. Even though I’ve been producing a lot, I’m sure I could have been producing more (upwards of 6k or 8k per day) if I’d had that sense of security provided.

Anyways, there is more that I could say, but I’m going to go to bed because it’s freaking 2:22 AM. Night.

The time sink

Man, life is different outside of school. So much time, so little structure. I find that I either write a lot, or I get distracted on some side project and write almost nothing.

For example, my bike broke down last week. Since that’s currently my only form of transportation besides walking, I spent a good amount of time this week fixing it. In fact…I took it apart and completely rebuilt it on a new frame. It was fun, educational, satisfying, and a good way to meet girls, but it took a lot of time away from writing.

Job hunting is another example. I signed up with a temp agency this past week, but haven’t seen any work yet, so I’m still somewhat antsy. It’s not easy watching money leave when you have no way to replenish it. But when your mind is on getting a job, it’s very hard to think about anything else.

I dunno. Maybe I’m just very bad at multitasking. But tonight, for the first time in a few days, I put all that aside and completely submersed myself in the act of writing. Boy, it sucked up a lot of time…but at the end, it felt so good. So satisfying.

I need more of that, if I’m going to make this writing thing take off. Got to outline a space for every necessary thing (including writing) and be careful about not overfilling that space. Looking for work is good, but thinking about it so much that I don’t have time for other things, that’s not good.

In the meantime, I’ll try to find some balance and update this blog more often. It’s my only active blog now, so I figure I should write more frequently. One thing I want to do with this free time is read more; I read a George R. R. Martin book last week, and I’m finishing up Dave Wolverton’s On My Way To Paradise for the second time right now. Expect some book reviews in the near future.

(hmm…I wonder if I could find a way to review books and get paid for it?)

Life in the Real World

So it’s been a week since I graduated, and life in the “real world” is very different from academia. In some ways, it’s scary, but in other ways, it’s actually kind of fun.

Freedom from schoolwork is HUGE. Seriously, I had no idea how much day-to-day stress came from school until now. Without this or that assignment hanging over my head, I feel incredibly liberated. I can go wherever I want, or do whatever I feel like doing, and the only restrictions on my time are the ones I set for myself.

Of course, life isn’t stress free–far from it. Employment is definitely a problem. I need to find a job and start making some kind of an income. That’s the main stressor right now–how am I going to sustain myself?

In some ways, it’s kind of a game. I’ve got my budget lined up, with projected monthly expenses, and that tells me how much money I need to make to break even. The object of the game is to find creative ways to make that money.

This is what I spend most of my day doing. Some interesting prospects include:

Freelance editing. A roommate of a friend of mine has actually contracted with me to do this for a company he recently started. It isn’t steady work, but $40-$60 per job for basically reworking a piece of fantasy, it isn’t bad either.
Freelance translation. A friend of mine from the FLSR told me all about this. Basically, I just need to set up a free account at proz.com, post my resume, set up paypal, and start taking jobs. Again, it isn’t steady, but it’s promising.
Temp work. As luck would have it, there’s a temp agency across the street from my apartment, and a friend of mine already works there. It’s just filler until I get a real job, but it seems to pay fairly well, though the labor is mostly grunt work. Still, better grunt work than office work.
Working for a teleresearch company down the street. It isn’t the best kind of work, but it’s a job, it’s got flexible openings, and it’s local.
Anything legit on craigslist.
Anything from the Wilk boards (though it’s kind of skimpy right now).
Donating plasma. Hey, $65 a week is better than nothing.

So that’s what I’m thinking about doing to hold me over until I get a real job. My goal for May is to make more money than I spend.

Really, though, I don’t need a job for the money–I’ve got enough cash saved up to last at least through the summer. I need a job for the sense of security. It’s hard to focus on writing when I don’t know how I’m going to support myself.

Another danger with unemployment is the lack of structure. When you don’t have to get up and go to work, you find yourself getting up later and later. If you don’t have to do anything, you generally don’t accomplish very much. It’s hard to stay productive in the face of so much free time.

Still, I’m going to try. I’m keeping up with my writing, doing about 3k-4k words per day on the revision of Mercenary Savior. I’ve got a handful of submissions out on Genesis Earth, and I’m going to keep a steady number of submissions out at any time. I’ve also been submitting my unpublished short stories, so we’ll see where that goes.

In the meantime, I’ll keep looking for a day job while I play the game of financial independence. It’s an adventure.

Pluggin’ away

Wrote 2,889 words today, bringing the running 7-day total to just under 15,000 words. If I can keep this up for a month without lagging, I should be able to finish Mercenary Savior 3.0 in time for CONduit.

In the meantime, I’m looking for a job. A friend of mine who’s in Egypt right now told me about this interesting online freelance contractor, which looks like a promising source of cash in the short term. Sent in my application, inshallah will hear back soon. Payment is via paypal on a work for hire basis, with most writers / copy editors averaging $20-$25 per hour, so could be useful. No benefits, but what the heck.

In between writing and applying with the online writing place, I submitted Genesis Earth to a couple new places, and sent From the Ice Incarnate to IGMS. I don’t have many short stories, but I really need to send out the few I do have to more markets. Maybe I can pull out the first couple chapters of some of my novels and call them short stories and/or novellas. Wouldn’t hurt.

Graduation is coming up in less than 100 hours. My parents arrived in town about an hour ago, and the rest of the family should be coming shortly. It will be really good to see them–I’m looking forward to it.

That’s about it for now. I’ve got some other thoughts on jobs, dating, future plans, settling down, an article I’m writing for Mormon Artist, and the computer I want to build once I’ve got a job, but I’ll write about that later. Goodnight.

Old story notebook, part 3

Alright, it’s time to finish up with the old story notebook I discovered a couple of weeks ago. These ideas were written down back in 2007, when I was writing the first draft of Ashes of the Starry Sea. Without further ado:

In the future, people live in arcologies, and wars are fought outside by robots. It will be a new system of feudalism: arcologies are like castles or walled towns, and people won’t die in the wars, just change sides.

I’m not sure I knew very much about feudalism as an economic system back then, but the basic idea, I think, was that life would be localized in the arcologies and nationalism as a unifying principle would die out.

In the Middle Ages, warfare was basically a contest between nobles, and though it certainly disrupted the lives of the peasants, they didn’t really care which side they were on because it didn’t make a difference. Napoleon revolutionized the world because he galvanized the peasants through the new concept of nationalism and made them actually care about the outcome of the wars.

An AI falls in love with a CS major, but the CS major loves a real girl.

The Little Mermaid, with a modern twist. And the mermaid AI commits suicide by uploading herself to a trashy old computer that’s on the verge of crashing. The final scene shows the wrecked computer somewhere in rural China, being scrapped for the metal parts in a vat of toxic chemicals. Awesome.

A character who’s an android and sees the world in terms of numbers.

The story should revolve around the question: if math is a language, how do you say “I love you” in numbers?

An election where people can scientifically predict best and worst case scenarios, based on each candidate’s qualities and the world situation.

Political science may not be a hard science, but it is awesome for science fiction.

Voter preferences are normally distributed around a common mean, but parties choose opposing points of view because of an information shortfall about the nature of that mean. What if the information problem were solved?

We would have exactly two parties that are identical in every meaningful way…wait a minute…

Someone discovers a language that is intuitive in all humans and overcomes many barriers of language in describing the world.

Linguistics is good for sf&f, too.

What if galaxies themselves were sentient?

Sounds like something out of a Robert Charles Wilson novel. I love it!

A space colony that, due to information technology, is a pure democracy.

I’m using this idea right now in Mercenary Savior. When I first started planning the novel, I wanted to do a story about the Mongols in space, but I knew it would need more than that, so I thought “what if one of the places they invaded was this pure democracy?” As soon as I combined the two ideas, BAM! I had a story.

An advanced society without public education or health care.

Uggggh, don’t even want to go there. Not until Obama’s out of office.

The Mormon pioneer exodus in space.

I tried to use this idea with Hero in Exile, but for some reason it didn’t work. It was as if the story wanted to go in a completely different direction. Oh well–you win some, you lose some. Besides, it’s not a total loss; it’s always possible to recycle.

A kingdom that will be cursed if ruled by anyone other than a direct heir. What if the direct heir is a child?

An attempt to brainstorm some fantasy.

Robot prostitutes–one who has no feeling or emotion, but develops artificial intelligence. This is what will fuel the development of androids.

Sad, but true.

A spaceship so massive that it generates tides when it enters orbit.

Sounds like something out of Arthur C. Clarke.

A tomagachi becomes sentient and uploads itself to the internet. OR…an AI disguises itself as a tomagachi.

Tomagachis! Whatever happened to them? They were so trendy…for like six months in the 90s.

What if our most deeply held beliefs had the power, under the right circumstances, to turn into monsters–real, literal, fantastic beings of awesome power?

Now there’s an idea with some interesting potential. We could build battle arenas and watch our beliefs duke it out, literally. Which ones would win?

A society that values myths more than facts.

I’m sure that societies like this have actually existed–or may still exist today.

American suicide bombers.

Hey! It could happen.

Ghosts on a spaceship.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide…

A culture where kissing (or any other public display of romantic affection) initiates marriage.

Now THIS I would like to see, or maybe even use someday. It could be interesting.

And that concludes the old story notebook, bringing us to the end of 2008 when I finished Ashes of the Starry Sea and left for the 2008 BYU Jordan study abroad.

Near scare and an awesome idea for the next novel

I wrote 1,780 words this morning–not bad. After such a good start, I figured I’d finish the last 720 for the day after finishing the day’s errands.

Long story short, when I finally settled in at 11pm to do a little writing before going to bed, I had some weird problems. Openoffice froze up, I ended it prematurely, and it turned out that that somehow corrupted one of the files I had opened. Instead of being 370 KB, it was now over 1,000 KB, and every time I tried to write something, it froze up for nearly half a minute.

In the end, I had to delete it.

Fortunately, this was NOT the main file for Mercenary Savior. Thank goodness! It was just the revision notes. I had copies of both (both about a week old), but I’m glad it wasn’t the main file, because I’d have lost over thirty pages of revisions. Yikes.

On a totally different note, I had an awesome dream this morning–one that I’m totally using in next novel I’m going to write (probably recycling much of Hero in Exile). It’s hard to describe it exactly, which is why I added this really weird picture to this post.

You may be wondering, “what the crap is that supposed to be?” I’ll tell you: it’s Arab. It’s Arab on so many different levels it makes me happy inside. I took it from the facebook profile pictures album of an old friend of mine from the ELC in Provo. What’s so Arab about it? Well, there’s 1) King Abdullah II 2) in battle fatigues 3) waving to the people 4) with an eagle in the background 5) wearing a Bedouin hutta 6) and some kind of military insignia on the agal. So freaking Arab.

So what was my dream? Well, it was kind of like a cross between Lawrence of Arabia and…a lot of weird stuff. At one point, King Hussein of Jordan commanded me to go into the desert east of Jerusalem and raise an army. I had a lot of questions, so he explained exactly what he wanted me to do–and in so doing, he explained exactly how the Bedouin fight wars.

Instead of keeping a standing army, a military leader must draw the warriors of the other tribes to his banner through his charisma, egalitarianism, reputation, etc. The warriors join his campaign, not to serve some grand concept of country, but to win spoils and glory. Once the campaign ends, they disband and return to their tribes until the next leader rallies them together.

Because of the way this works, a charismatic leader can pass through the desert virtually by himself, only to come out on the other side with a fearsome army. This is what happened in Lawrence of Arabia when Lawrence took Aqaba–he passed through the desert with a token force of barely fifty men, but the feat (and his brilliant diplomatic skills) so impressed the Bedouins on the other side that they rallied to him and stormed the city. From the Turks’ point of view, the army came out of nowhere and crushed them.

So that’s what I’m thinking I need to do at some point in my next novel: have the main character, poor and destitute, go out to the desert and rally the tribes with nothing but his charisma. I’ve already got the rough (VERY rough) outline of the story in my head, and this plot point fits perfectly into this one section where I was worrying that things lagged too much.

Oh man, I’ve got such awesome plans for this book! But first, must revise Mercenary Savior and send it out. Don’t worry, I’m enthusiastic about that project, too. It will get done! Momentum is building–I’ll more than make up those 720 words tomorrow.

So much happening, so little getting done

…in terms of writing, that is. I got a lot of little and not-so-little things done today, but didn’t spend much time writing. Only got about 855 words, when I need to be averaging 2.5k per day in order to finish Mercenary Savior before CONduit.

The weirdest part is that I have so much free time. No school, no work–no pressing obligations or deadlines. You’d think I’d be writing 4k a day, just like last summer.

Instead, I’ve been so consumed with getting an apartment, getting a job, getting basic transportation–basically, figuring out a plan for my immediate future–that I’ve lost any momentum I might have had a week ago. Writing isn’t just about time; it’s about mental space as well.

It’s frustrating. I feel so distant from Mercenary Savior that it’s hard not to procrastinate, especially now that I’m stuck on one of James’s scenes that needs a complete overhaul. I wonder whether these revisions are making the novel any better–I need to deal with this outside stress and get back into the story.

Fortunately, things are working out that I’ll probably be able to do that. I found a cheap bike on craigslist that will hopefully solve my immediate transportation needs, and I’ve got a semi-workable plan as far as employment goes.

The plan that currently seems most attractive is to get a full or 3/4ths part time job at BYU (those come with benefits) before the end of the summer. Yes, there is still a hiring freeze, but it could lift very soon, and when it does, there will be tons of positions to fill. It’s not like I’m going to hold out for that, but I’m certainly hopeful. I felt very good about it when I visited D-70 ASB for information.

Anyways, the key with the writing is to cut the distractions and just slug through it for a few days, until the momentum comes back. In the absence of school or work, it will be difficult to impose structure on my days, but that problem will solve itself if I can balance job-seeking with writing.

Exactly one month ago, I started the revision for Mercenary Savior. I’ve got 40 days before the self-imposed deadline, and I’m only 25% finished. Fortunately, without any school obligations to occupy my time, I should be able to do it. 2.5k per day, that’s the goal. Once I’ve got some momentum going again, it should be pretty straightforward.

In the meantime, check out this awesome, awesome song from This American Life and rage against the robber barons of the Great Recession:

Bet Against The American Dream from Planet Money on Vimeo.

Quark has a new writing VP

That’s right; her board name is Jimmy and she’s basically doing it the same way I did it–by jumping in the deep end first. Joined quark last semester, went to a few writing meetings, and pow! Writing VP.

Anyways, we had some interesting conversations after the last writing group meeting of the semester. Basically, I think I convinced her to set daily writing goals the same way Aneeka convinced me. She also decided to start a writing blog, so if you get a chance, you should check it out! It’s called Dragons, Dirt & Bones, after the quote by G. K. Chesterton:

Fairytales are more than true–not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

The funny thing is that we met each other two years ago and both totally forgot about it. She was a high school junior visiting BYU, and came to Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class. She remembers bookstore guy…and one of the writers whom the others in the writing group mercilessly ripped on. Guess who that was?

In unrelated news, I am no longer homeless but am currently unemployed. Dropped off a business card at Pioneer Book, though–told them I could help if they need extra work for the move. Who knows, maybe that will lead to something.

I will probably end up getting a generic summer job, then upgrade to something more semi-permanent (and resume friendly) by August. I’ll probably stay in Utah, using my writing and editing skills in some capacity. I’d like to work as a grant writer for BYU, but they’re still under a hiring freeze. Once that lifts, though, there are going to be a ton of job openings.

My primary plan is still to make my living as a published author, and I’m very optimistic about that working out. Before the end of next week, I want to have Genesis Earth sent out to at least five new places. My goal for Mercenary Savior is to finish draft 3.0 by CONduit at the end of May, but I will probably polish the first three chapters and start sending it out before then.

In the meantime, the real world awaits. Scary, I know, but at least I’m graduating debt free, with a roof over my head, friends and family close by, and lots of exciting possibilities for the future. I think things will turn out well.

Quick post from Provo

This is going to be quick, because it’s late at night and I want to get some sleep.

I made it to Provo. I’m currently staying with an old roommate, sleeping on his couch. To do: find a job and a place to live. Fortunately, I’ve just about got the second one secured.

I talked with the editors at Leading Edge today, and they told me they’ve been having problems with the buy function on their website. If you tried to buy a copy of issue 58 (the one with my story) before this month, they probably lost your address. Don’t worry, they voided the purchase, but if you want a copy you’ll have to go through the process again. Sorry for the hassle.

Wrote the last academic paper of my undergraduate college career today. The last freaking paper. Hooray!

I dropped in to English 318 tonight, and a couple of Sanderson fans got engaged in front of the whole class. It was pretty cool, not the least because they were cosplaying at the same time. Good luck, Mi’chelle! May you and your future husband have a wonderful life together!

Thanks for all the feedback on the new title. I think I’m going to stick with it. It’s weird to call the book by a different name after working on it for so long under the other title, but I think Mercenary Savior works much better.

Looked up Westercon today and found out it’s only $60. Thinking seriously about going. Should I? Is anyone else planning on going?

To do tomorrow: get cap and gown, complete and file taxes, sign a spring/summer contract, meet up with old supervisors/professors in pursuit of a job, go to a bonfire and have a good time.

My mom always got depressed with to do lists; she always felt daunted when she saw all the tasks she needed to accomplish. To counteract this, she made a “tasks accomplished” list at the end of the day to make her feel better. So, on that note:

Accomplished: finished all Washington Seminar coursework, attended English 318 and obtained leads for Mormon Artist article, attended Leading Edge and caught up with the slushies, got a date for next Friday (totally unrelated), submitted Genesis Earth to an agent, wrote +2.2k in Mercenary Savior.

Not bad. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to crash for the night.