Category: Edenfall

Deciding on the next project

First, you know how I said I’d raise the price of Genesis Earth as an experiment?  Well, after thinking it through a little more, I figured that it’s more important at this point to build a following, and to do that I should probably have at least one novel at the $2.99 price point.  Since Genesis Earth is the only novel I have out right now, I decided to drop the price, where it will probably stay for a while.  Flakey, I know, but so be it.

More importantly, I’m coming up on the end of the third draft of Desert Stars.  It’s going to be a push, but I hope to finish it by the end of the week.  It’s an awesome book and I’m way excited with it, but it leaves me wondering: what next?

I’m currently torn between two projects.  The first one, Edenfall, is the sequel to Genesis Earth, and the second in the trilogy.  It’s been kicking around in my mind for a long time, and I’ve already got it all outlined and ready to go.

But…the flashier, more exciting project to me right now is the next book in the Gaia Nova series, an indirect sequel to both Desert Stars and Bringing Stella Home, which I hope to epublish later this month.  Even though I have a ton of ideas for it, I have absolutely NO outline whatsoever.  Nothing.  All I know is that it’s basically the Battle of Ain Jalut in space, with Rina from Desert Stars and Danica, Roman, and the other mercenaries from Bringing Stella Home.  Oh, and Stella and Qasar’s son, a Hameji prince who makes an appearance in Into the Nebulous Deep.  That’s it.

And yet…I am sooo excited to work on it.  You have no idea.

So…should I go with the safe, reliable project?  Or the sexy, mysterious one?  There are good reasons to go with either.  Edenfall should be fairly straightforward, taking no more than two months.  With the first in the series already out and selling, I should probably write it sooner rather than later.  However, the Gaia Nova series is much more expansive, and since I’m already immersed in that universe from working on Desert Stars, it would be much easier to jump right into it.

Right now, I’m leaning more toward the second project, but knowing my personal writing process, I’ll probably get stuck somewhere in the middle and switch to Edenfall.  But hey, if it works, it works.  That’s how I’ve written all of my other books so far: start the rough draft with a frenzied burst of creative energy, then let it sit for a while and move on to other projects before coming back and finishing the first.

Either way, I’m not going to pull a Rothfuss or a Martin.  My goal is to finish my next project in 8 weeks or less, which will be tough with my current job, but not impossible.  Which reminds me of yet another reason why I never want to be salaried (unless I’m the one running the business).  Not that I plan on ever being pregnant…

Killing the sacred cows while doing data entry

Sorry for the lack of blog posts; I’ve been working 40 hours a week at this temp job, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for other things outside of writing.  I’m still plugging along at about 1k to 2k words per day, but a lot of other stuff is falling behind.  Fortunately, the job only lasts another two weeks, and that should earn me enough to take the next month off and focus on writing.  I’m really looking forward to that.

This job isn’t too bad; it’s tedious, but I can read blogs and listen to podcasts and music while I do it, so I’ve been catching up on a lot of business research.  Last week, I read all of Kris Rusch’s The Business Rusch Publishing blog series, and right now I’m working my way through Dean Wesley Smith’s Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing.

Let me just say, this stuff is pure gold.  Every post (and a surprising number of the comments, especially those by Laura Resnick) have been extremely eye opening.  At the outset, almost everything Dean or Laura say about the industry seems absolutely blasphemous…but it all makes so much sense.

Like the post about how agents shouldn’t be giving authors any career advice… because they’ll usually advise you to write to the market, not to what you’re passionate about (and can therefore write well). Or how if you’re a midlister, it’s usually in the agent’s best interest to side with the editor, since they may have ten or more clients at stake in this house and you only represent a $3k annual revenue stream to them (or less).

The best piece of advice across the whole series so far comes from Dean:

Don’t listen to rules (myths) and do what works for you and if it doesn’t work, try something else, and when that stops working, try something else. Don’t do it my way or Larry Brooks way or Laura’s way or Harlan’s way. Steal parts from all of us and do it your way.

The thing I find most gratifying, however, is the fact that I figured out on my own that submitting to agents first probably isn’t the best way to break in. But man, there is so much awesome, paradigm-shifting stuff in these posts, it is amazing.  Pure gold.

In the meantime, Into the Nebulous Deep is going surprisingly well.  I should have it finished by mid-May, and though it will probably need some serious revision (unlike Dean, my creative mind gets more fired up in the revision process than the drafting process), the major story arc is coming along very nicely.

I wonder if that has to do with the fact that ITND will be my fifth completed novel.  My first one, Ashes of the Starry Sea, was mostly smooth to write, but it was also a practice novel and as such royally sucks.  Genesis Earth went through an EXTREMELY convoluted writing process, but it was good enough to get to the quarter-finalist stage of the 2011 ABNA contest (and in two days, I’ll find out if it made the semi finals…<fingers crossed>).  Bringing Stella Home was also pretty tough to write, as was Worlds Away from Home, though the revisions have been more straightforward so far.

So does this mean I’m starting to come into my stride as a novelist?  I hope so, because I want to start pushing myself.  After ITND, I want to revise WAFH in six weeks or less–and I’ll probably throw out 1/3 to 1/2 of the material and completely rewrite it.  After that, I want to do Sholpan in two or three weeks–but that shouldn’t be hard, because the material is mostly there already.  Whether Genesis Earth wins or loses the ABNA contest, I’ll want to write Edenfall–before August, if I can manage it.  And then, there’s always that post-apocalyptic blight project…

Anyhow, sorry for the rambling.  The point is, I want to take my writing to a new level this summer, and after this temp job is finished, I’ll be in a great position to do it.  In the meantime, I’ll merrily watch Dean kill the sacred cows while I fill out UPS shipping data for the next two weeks.

And now, here’s some candy for your ears:

Change of plans

So I was going to start Edenfall this week…but then, I realized I wanted to spend some more time in the universe of Worlds Away from Home, so I decided to work on Into the Nebulous Deep instead.

ITND is a direct sequel to Mercenary Savior.  Basically, it grew out of the realization that James’s story wasn’t anywhere near finished.  Like WAFH, I’m trying to throw in some romantic elements…how well that works out remains to be seen.  I’ll probably get it all wrong on the first draft, but make it shine in subsequent drafts.

Anyhow, here’s the soundtrack I’ve put together.  Most of the songs are from ocremix, but there’s also a good bit of U2 and a little Daft Punk, as well as a couple chiptunes that probably no one’s heard of.  Man, I love chiptunes.

I’m going to try to write through this rough draft as quickly as possible.  Right now, I’ve got a deadline for April 16th, but I wonder if I can finish before that.

Part of that has to do with my new goal of two novels per year; I want to train myself to write quickly, so I can be putting out more work.  More than that, though, I want to try and tap into my creativity in a deeper way.  If I can train myself to write quickly, I’ll be less prone to self-edit, which hopefully will help the creative part of my mind to flourish more freely.  That was certainly the case with WAFH 2.1, and I want to do it again.

I stopped ITND 1.0 back in December in order to work on Bringing Stella Home; not because it wasn’t working, but because BSH needed a little more work.  After that, I ended up picking up WAFH.  Now, it’s time to go back and finish this project.

More thoughts on indie publishing

Since my last post on indie publishing, I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject.  I haven’t decided to take the plunge into self published ebooks yet, but I have decided to make some changes in my writing and my career strategy, in order to position myself more favorably if/when I choose to do so.

Basically, my new strategy is something like Japan or Saudi Arabia’s approach to nuclear weapons: they don’t have an explicit nuclear program (since that would violate the nuclear non-proliferation treaty), but they have gathered the equipment, resources, and expertise together so that if they decided to go nuclear, they could do it in a year or less.

First, though, I attended Brandon Sanderson’s class lecture this Thursday, in which he had some very interesting things to say about ebooks and the publishing industry.  This was part I of his “how to get published” lecture, and here are some of the more interesting points he made:

  • Almost all the indie writers who are making it big have at least one loss leader ($.99 or less) on their list.
  • No one really knows whether indie publishing will be viable for large numbers of writers, or whether authors like Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath are outliers.
  • Successful indie published books are typically:
    1) short (70k to 80k words)
    2) written in a pulp genre (thriller, romance, paranormal, sword & sorcery, etc)
    3) promoted very well through social networking
  • We have not yet seen any indie successes in epic fantasy, young adult / middle grade, historical fiction, or non-fiction.
  • The produce model vs. unlimited shelf space argument for going indie doesn’t apply as much to science fiction & fantasy as other genres, because:
    1) sf&f stays on the shelves in bookstores longer than other genres
    2) sf&f series grow better with a big push on the first book
    3) sf&f makes a lot of money on hardcover, unlike other genres

A lot of these points tend to mesh with what I’m hearing from my other sources–and Brandon really represents the last of the successful writers to make it big on the old model, before the ebook revolution began to take off.  He doesn’t make as big a deal on the current 25/75 split on net ebook sales as I would make, but then again, he’s making most of his money through print.

So anyways, here is what I plan to change about what I’m doing in order to better position myself to best take the ebook plunge, if/when I decide to do so:

1) Write at least 2 polished novels per year

Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith make very good arguments about how being able to write well quickly is a huge asset for a writer these days.

There are many good reasons for this:

1) Writing faster gives you more practice with craft, which tends to improve quality.
2) The best way to promote  your books is to constantly write new books.
3) The limited shelf space argument against writing quickly is now moot with ebooks.

In particular, I want to increase my writing speed in order that I can have a larger list to put out if/when I decide to go with indie publishing.  It’s much harder to be successful if you’ve only got one book available for sale; if/when I decide to take the plunge, I want to have at least three.

So far this year, I’ve finished one (Bringing Stella Home), but that’s because it was already sitting in the queue and only needed a quick touch up.  I would like to get Worlds Away from Home polished before the end of the year, and possibly one other project, such as Edenfall.

2) Reduce production time to as close to one year as possible

Right now, it takes me on average about two years to write a polished, salable novel.  That’s not a problem, because I have a lot of projects in the queue, but it’s not as fast as I would like.  I wrote Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home while I was still a journeyman writer, figuring out my craft.  I should be able to produce a lot faster.

Towards that end, I’m going to try to get Edenfall finished and polished within a year.  Since it’s already March, that might mean getting it polished by February of next year, but I still want to try.

My biggest weakness is first drafts; I always tend to get stuck midway and drop the project for a while before I feel ready to finish it.  That’s something I would like to change.  Then again, that might just be part of my writing process, and shouldn’t be forced.  However, I certainly could go through my revisions much faster.

3) Write out the direct sequels while the first book is still unpublished

Previously, I thought it was a bad idea to write out all the books in a series or trilogy before the first one is ever picked up.  After all, a rejection from a publisher on the first book is a rejection on all the other books in the series as well.  Using this reasoning, it was much better to write the first book of another trilogy, in order to maximize how much I could submit at any given time.

With indie publishing, however, it’s much better to release the whole trilogy all at once, so that readers who finish the first book can immediately pick up the others.  Again, the paradigm here is that the best way to sell books is with other books; if they loved the one, they’ll buy the others, especially to find out what happens next.

Of course, the best model is probably to have an open series with several indirect sequels with recurring characters in the same world.  With the Gaia Nova books, that’s exactly what I plan to do: Worlds Away from Home is set in the same universe as Bringing Stella Home, but with different characters and different story arcs.

However, Genesis Earth has serious trilogy potential, and with Edenfall I’ve decided to actually write the other books.  If/when I decide to take the plunge, I want to be able to release at least the first two books in that trilogy at the same time.  In fact, Genesis Earth is perhaps the biggest reason why I’m thinking so seriously about going indie, but that’s a subject for a whole other post.

4) Experiment with pulp genres such as space adventure stories

When Brandon said that the pulp genres tend to do better, I wasn’t sure whether that includes what I write.  I write primarily science fiction, but not the kind of stories you’d read only for entertainment and promptly forget once you’re finished.  If anything, I want to write more like Ursula K. Le Guin, whose stories are so meaningful they stick with you long after you’ve finished them.

Then again, there tends to be a lot of overlap in science fiction between the thoughtful, meaningful stuff and the pulps.  Ender’s Game and Starship Troopers immediately come to mind as awesome, entertaining stories that also have a lot of depth.  In his lecture, Brandon made it clear that “pulp” does not necessarily conflict with high art–just that the primary purpose of the story is to entertain.

I can live with that–and I actually have several story ideas that would translate well with the pulp mentality.  I’d like to do a novel (or a series of novels) with Danica from BSH and her mercenary team, perhaps as a sort of origin story for Roman, Anya, Artyom, and the others.  I’d like to revisit the Hameji as well, with a sort of “Ain Jalut in space” involving Sholpan’s son (BSH was basically the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in space).  I’ve already started an “Odyssey in space,” as told from a female Telemachus character–that’s To Search the Starry Sea.  All of these are, at their core, space adventure stories, and might translate well as pulps.

5) Commit to releasing one book every 6 months if/when I take the plunge

This is related to the first strategy on the list, but it’s more of a business plan than a personal writing goal.  Basically, if/when I take the plunge, I want to:

1) have at least 3 finished, polished books to put out at first,
2) know that I can put out one book every six months at least.

This not only means developing a backlist, it means doing some soul searching as a writer to find out how difficult it is to keep up with this pace–and adjusting my writing habits accordingly.  I’m optimistic that I can, but it’s something of a paradigm shift, and I want to make sure I’ve made that shift before I take the leap.

Anyhow, these are my thoughts on how to alter my current writing strategy.  I haven’t yet decided to go indie, but when the time comes, I think that these things will help me to maximize my potential if/when I decide to do so.

Of course, what do any of us really know?

Beard pics and other updates

In case you didn’t know, I’ve been experimenting a bit with facial hair recently.  I figure, hey, I’m no longer a BYU student, so I might as well, right?  Well, the results are in, and I must say I’m quite pleased.

I mean, check out how awesome I look:

Alright, fine, so that’s actually Waylander from David Gemmell’s Drenai series, but hey, a man can dream, right?

So anyways, here’s what the beard REALLY looks like:

I figured it would be good to keep it short, and trim around the neck and cheek; kind of like Riker, actually (no joke–his look was kind of what I was shooting for).

One of the funny things I’ve noticed is how many girls have actually complimented me on this thing.  It struck me as quite a surprise, because from previous conversations with the opposite sex, growing a beard is something of a kiss (or lack thereof) of death.  Interestingly enough, I’ve gotten as many or more compliments from women as I have from men.  How does that work?

I guess that girls are opposed to beards as an idea, but (like most guys) they just don’t know what they want until they see it.

Probably the most hilarious about-face was from my sister Kate (who just started a new blog, hey!).  When I was contemplating growing it earlier this winter, she kept telling me not to–that it would look hideous, that no girl would ever want to date me, that it would ruin my social life, etc.  Well, guess what she said today?

Me: so you like my beard, eh?
oh ye of little faith
Kate: yes
…
Kate: I like it
I think it makes you look good
you need to be sure to keep it trimmed
it looks good
I’m really surprised
Me: hehehe
Kate: I eat my worrds
Me: so why are you so surprised?
Kate: hahaaha

So anyways, what do you think?  Should it stay, or should it go?  I’m kind of partial to it, but I’m open to hearing any contrary opinions, if there are any.

In unrelated news, I am sooo freaking close to finishing WAFH 2.0, and it orders of magnitude better than the first draft.  Still, it needs a lot of work, so I’m looking for first readers to help me out with it.  If you’d be willing to help out, please let me know (and please, only people I know in real life–as much as I love you for reading this blog, I’d prefer not to hand out my work to complete strangers) (also, some of you have already emailed me and I haven’t gotten back to you yet, but don’t worry–I haven’t forgotten.  Expect an email about it sometime in the next week).

If you’d like to volunteer as a first reader for WAFH, I’d ask you to finish it by April 15 (tax day, joy!).  My next project is Edenfall, and I expect that to take me at least a month and a half.  I’m really hoping to get WAFH publishable before the end of the year, so I’ll probably start the next draft by May.

In other totally unrelated news, I’m going to write Edenfall 1.0 entirely in longhand.  Crazy?  Perhaps.  I’ve got the notebook for it, though, and did some arts and crafts with it over the weekend–pictures to follow.  Also, I’ll be sure to let you know what it’s like to write a novel in longhand; it should be interesting.

Aaand that’s about it for now.  Gotta write!

Deceptively productive day and other updates

Man, I revised through about 4k words today…and wrote a 1.5k outline for Edenfall to boot.  Not bad, considering how much time I spent putzing around reading publishing blogs and job hunting on craigslist.

Things are going well with WAFH; after a slight dropoff at the end of last week, I’m rebuilding momentum rather quickly.  But then again, I’m currently at an easy part in the draft.  Pretty soon, I’ll have to throw everything out and start from scratch.

Job hunting sucks…but what else is new?  I signed up for an online TEFL certification course, to the tune of $250 (youch!).  Hopefully, that will help land me a good teaching job in an advanced pay grade overseas.

I swear, the job market here in the states is so bad that I don’t see any other way around it but to leave the country.  Maybe if I was a CS major, or had no qualms selling people crap they didn’t need, or was willing to wipe up elderly people’s butts after they’ve defecated all over the place…no thank you.  In any case, teaching English is an adventure, and I very much look forward to it.

In the meantime, there are a few local graveyard job openings that might allow me to write on the side while I babysit a desk.  If those don’t work out, hopefully I’ll find something else before my checking account dries up sometime in March.

I’m getting really excited for Edenfall.  Last night, as I was falling asleep, I ran through the basic storyline in my head.  Fortunately, I remembered it well enough in the morning to write it all down.  It’s going to be awesome.

I’m also starting to rethink my philosophy on writing direct sequels.  I used to follow Sanderson’s line of thought; it doesn’t make sense to finish the series, because if a publisher rejects the first book, they won’t be interested in the others.  However, with ebooks and self publishing becoming more accessible and lucrative, the ability to put out a complete trilogy all at once is a great strength.

I’m thinking very seriously about putting Genesis Earth out there, but it’s the first book in a trilogy, and it would probably boost sales of all three if I could put them all at once.  Aneeka gave me a good suggestion today: put out the first book for free, while selling the other two at a competitive price.  Sadly, it will probably be a year or two before the others are ready…but my writing skills are constantly improving, so maybe I’ll be able to produce them a little faster.

Which brings me to a very interesting post I read on Dean Wesley Smith’s blog yesterday about writing speed.  Thus far, I’ve been shooting to produce one polished book per year, but after reading that post, I wonder if I should shoot for more.  Can I write two books a year and still maintain a high level of quality?  I’m not so sure; GE and BSH both required five rewrites before I got them fully polished, and Mr. Smith’s numbers don’t seem to take the revision process into account.

This year, though, I’m hoping to produce two polished books: Bringing Stella Home, which I’ve already finished, and Worlds Away from Home, which is my current WIP.  I’m only on the second draft, and there are tons of story issues, but I’m working through them fairly quickly.  I’ll probably put in another two or three rewrites before the end of the year, and still have time to finish a couple of other rough drafts–Edenfall and The Stars of Redemption (third book), potentially.

Of course, if I land a job, that might throw a kink into things–as will traveling overseas.  But as with all things, I’ll take those eventualities as they come.

(image shamelessly lifted from this site.)

Looking for alpha readers and planning the next project

Worlds Away from Home 2.1 is going along well.  I had a hard time switching from Bringing Stella Home back to this other project, but I’ve got some good momentum going and assuming no major interruptions, should be able to do about 3k words a day for the rest of the week.

Then again, if I get interrupted by work, that might be a good thing…

The second draft is going to be pretty rough, but good enough to start sending out to alpha readers.  Anyone want to volunteer?  It’s basically a far future love story on a planet with desert-dwelling tribal nomads who drive micronuclear powered dune buggies and centuries-old arcologies under giant continent-sized domes.  Earth is an ancient, mythical legend, and roving bands of starfaring nomads stand poised to crush the galactic empire.

I hope to be finished with the second draft by March 1st, and I’d want to get feedback no later than the end of April.  If you’ve been one of my alpha readers before, or if we’re friends IRL, let me know if you’re interested.

So earlier today, I was thinking about the project I want to do after WAFH–a sequel to Genesis Earth.  I’ve been toying with the idea of releasing GE as an ebook, but I don’t want to do that until I have a sequel in the works.  Anyhow, I was thinking of ideas for the title, and out of the blue, it struck me:

EDENFALL.

Kind of plays on the subtle Adam and Eve theme of the first one (and no, Genesis Earth isn’t technically a sci-fi Adam and Eve story…but it kind of evokes one).  I like it because it fits well with my ideas for the story, which basically center around shattering the Edenic paradise that Michael and Terra reach at the end of GE.

I’ve got a lot of ideas for this book, and I think they’re reaching a critical mass.  Just last month, I came up with a great name for the main female protagonist: Estee.  She’s the eldest daughter of Terra and Michael, and kind of takes after her mother’s personality.  The male protagonist will be a young soldier from the military force sent out by panicky Earth officials to neutralize any threat on Icaria–which gives the commanders of the expedition a broad mandate to do whatever the hell they want. As you can imagine, conflict ensues.

I know how this story begins, and I know how it’s supposed to end (and thereby set things up for an awesome third book in the trilogy), but I have no idea how to build things up to the crazy twist ending.  It’s going to require some serious worldbuilding, and that’s going to take some time.  Daydreaming is such hard work, after all.

Anyhow, I should be ready by the time I finish WAFH 2.1.  As an experiment, I’m going to write the rough draft entirely in longhand.  Am I crazy?  Perhaps.  But I also want to spend some time in the Utah wilderness for inspiration while I’m writing it, so pen and paper is probably the best medium for that.

So those are my plans.  To close, let me link to this awesome cover of “Something About Us” by Daft Punk.  Now that’s some sweet theremin action…enjoy!