Category: Star Wanderers

Thoughts on ebook parts and a sneak peek of STAR WANDERERS: DREAMWEAVER (aka Star Home)

There’s been some discussion on forums and the blogosphere recently about the different parts that should make up an ebook, and what order they should be in.  J.A. Konrath just did an interesting blog post on the subject, in which he picks his own books apart and gives some advice.  At the moment, here is how I’ve structured mine:

  1. Cover image (600×800).  Usually the same as the high res one I upload separately to publish, but may be different.
  2. Copyright page.  Very brief.
  3. Table of Contents, with hyperlinks to each chapter.
  4. The book blurb, which also appears in the book description on most retail sites.
  5. The book itself.  When you open up the ebook for the first time, this is where it automatically starts.
  6. A brief author’s note, in which I tell the story behind the story–how I came up with the idea, what the writing process was like, and any other relevant influences worth mentioning.
  7. The acknowledgment page, in which I list my first readers and anyone else who helped out with the book production.
  8. A couple of sample chapters for other books.  I only put these into the novels, though–for the novellas, they would take up more than 10% of the total ebook content.  That’s pushing it.
  9. A page promoting the Writer2ePub plugin which I use to build my ebooks.  It’s a really awesome plugin, and I figure the developer deserves some acknowledgment for his work.

I don’t totally agree with all of Konrath’s advice.  For example, I think the copyright page is small enough that it can go in the front without inflating the sample too much.  Then again, I keep the copyright page pretty brief–none of these ridiculous “unauthorized reproduction of this content is piracy and piracy is evil blah blah blah.” Not that I want to be pirated, but I figure my readers are smart enough to know all that stuff already.

In general, though, I think Konrath’s advice is mostly right, especially the part about not padding the end of the book with sample chapters.  I’ve seen a lot of readers complain about getting to the 90% mark of an ebook, only to find that the story is over and the rest of the content is filler.  As a reader, I’ve experienced that disappointment myself.

However, I do think it’s important to include at least some sort of mention of other available books in the back matter.  Until now, that’s meant sample chapters, as long as they take up less than 5% or so of the total content.  Since my Star Wanderers novellas are so short, I haven’t added any sample chapters to them–just a brief plug to sign up for the email list.  And for my novels, I only add a prologue or first chapter, so as not to take up too much space.

Recently, though, I’ve started to rethink this strategy.  When I finish a book, I’m not usually in the mood to read a sample chapter of the next one unless it’s a direct sequel that picks up right where the end of the book leaves off.  I will eagerly browse through book blurbs, though, especially if they’re in the same series or genre.  A good book blurb is much more likely to influence my decision on what to read next than a sample chapter, which I usually just skip over.

For that reason, I’ve decided to take out the sample chapters in my novels over the next few weeks, and replace them with a much shorter page containing a thumbnail cover image and book description for the next book.  I’ll still keep the author’s notes, since I enjoy writing them and I think they’re a good way to engage my readers.  It’s one of those things that makes it a Vasicek book.  But yeah, the sample chapters are gonna go.

This also opens up the possibility of trading book blurbs with other writers.  For example, my friend Kindal Debenham writes space opera stories in the same vein as my Gaia Nova series.  He shows up in my Also Boughts every now and again, so I know there’s a bit of a crossover in our readership.  I haven’t approached him with this idea yet, but if we both included short book blurbs for each other in the back matter of each of our books, we could cross-pollinate our fan base and point readers out to some books they’d be likely to enjoy.

That’s just a thought.  It will be interesting to run with it.

As for the sneak peek I promised in the title of this post, I’ve been playing around in Gimp the last couple of days, working on the cover art for the next Star Wanderers novella while waiting for my editor and illustrator to get back to me on Stars of Blood and Glory.  Here’s what I came up with:

SW-V Dreamweaver (cover)

What do you guys think?  That’s a pretty cool nebula, isn’t it? Hubble is so friggin awesome. 🙂 I took this from a new image of NGC 5189 that was featured on APOD a few months back.  The moment I saw it, I knew I’d be using it in a Star Wanderers cover. 😀

Dreamweaver is a parallel novella to Outworlder, and covers the events of that story from Noemi’s point of view.  I wrote it back in the spring of 2012, and put it on the back burner while I focused on finishing the other ones in the series.  In the author’s note of Fidelity, I think I referred to it as “Star Home,” which was originally its working title.  I was going to do all the other parallel novellas from Noemi’s point of view, but I’ve since decided to branch out with the other characters.  Right now, I’m writing a novella from Jakob’s point of view, which is turning out to be quite interesting.

After Stars of Blood and Glory is published, I plan to put up Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver, hopefully within a month or two.  After that, I’d like to bundle parts I-IV into an omnibus and put that up as The Jeremiah Chronicles, in ebook as well as print-on-demand.  A lot of that depends on cash flow, though, since I plan to hire an illustrator and go all out.  If any of you have any suggestions for a good artist / cover designer, please let me know!  The Star Wanderers books take place in the same universe as the Gaia Nova series, but they have their own distinctive feel and I’d like to find someone whose art reflects that.

That’s just about all for now.  It’s getting late, and I plan to wake up early to write.  President’s day is kind of a useless holiday–in fact, most one-day holidays are kind of useless when you’re a freelancer.  So yeah.  Later!

LTUE 2013

Man, LTUE 2013 was this weekend, and it was AWESOME.  One of the best conventions I’ve ever attended.  I spoke on my first panel, attended my first book signing event as an author, and got to meet up with some old friends, as well as some amazing new people.

Since I live tweeted most of the panels I attended, I thought it might be interesting to repost a few of those here, with some additional thoughts.  So…here goes!

THURSDAY

I believe this was Scott Parkin from the “What Do You Write?” panel. Good advice. Megan Whalen Turner also had some very interesting things to say on the subject of genre, which I have since forgotten. But I recorded it, and the recording will eventually be made publicly available in the LTUE conference archives, or so I’ve been told.

This one was from the “What Is ‘Punk’ Literature and Its Many Genres?” panel. David Butler and Larry Correia were HILARIOUS. Nearly got into a wrestling match right in front of us.

And when the esteemed Mr. Butler began to describe his book, I swear, a choir of steampunk angel Moronis somewhere began to sing a heavenly chorus. I mean, he had me with Edgar Allen Poe faking his death to become a secret agent, but Orson Pratt’s phlogiston guns? Eliza R. Snow as chief counterintelligence officer for the Kingdom of Deseret? I will definitely be checking out this book, City of the Saints (which is apparently a finalist for the 2013 Whitney Award).

David Butler is also a way cool guy. I hung out with him a bit in the dealer’s room, chatting about Mormon history, Lyman Wight (“shoot and be damned!”), Sir Richard Francis Burton’s expedition to Salt Lake City, and all sorts of other crazy zany stuff. And the whole time, he was playing a guitar. So yeah, definitely a way cool guy.

This discovery CHANGED MY LIFE. Also, it helped me to save immensely on lunch money, as well as join in on some way cool conversations with other panelists as they desperately tried to escape their fans. Okay, not really, but the green room was AWESOME.

Howard Taylor’s presentation on teasers was tremendously insightful. In a nutshell, he said that a teaser (aka book description on Amazon / back cover) should have or at least point to the following things:

  1. The inciting incident
  2. Character action
  3. Conflict
  4. Hook

We then went over a few examples, including some good ones that broke these rules, and finished up by doctoring a couple of teasers volunteered from the audience. Howard Taylor admitted to me later that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with the way he presented it, but I get the impression that he’s never entirely satisfied with anything less than perfection. It was a great workshop.

From “Engaging the Reader.” Great panel. Lisa Mangum described the planning / drafting / revising process for each of her first three novels, and they were all wildly different. With seven novels under my belt so far, I can definitely relate. Some, like Genesis Earth and Stars of Blood and Glory, practically write themselves. Others are like having a c-section with a hacksaw. And others…yeah, I’m not going to go there.

FRIDAY

Okay, maybe I said one useful thing: when there’s a language barrier, little things become big obstacles. One of the other panelists, Anna Del C. Dye, also had a bunch of stories about adapting to a foreign language and culture (in her case, the United States).

Overall, the panel was really, really fun! I also had some cards out for Star Wanderers: Outworlder, and a bunch of people came up afterward to get them. Guess I must have said something interesting. I hope you guys enjoy the book!

 

From “Current Trends in SF.” Great panel–it totally wasn’t just another over-hyped discussion about what’s hot right now. I asked how the panelists think the trend cycle will change in the age of self-published ebooks, and they had some very interesting things to say. They all agreed that speed to market, while it may give some advantages, isn’t a make-or-break game changer, or even really a good strategy (unless you really love the trend you’re writing to). Some things change, others remain the same. It will be interesting to give this one a re-listen.

 

 

From “Creators in the Community.” Probably one of the best panels of the entire convention. Tracy Hickman is really on top of the changes in the publishing world, and had a lot of interesting things to say about it in all of his panels. As for the subject of writerly communities, much wisdom and insight was shared by all of the panelists. Definitely look for this one.

Man, I’d forgotten how cool the guys at Dungeon Crawlers Radio are! They interviewed me back in 2011, when I was just getting ready to publish Genesis Earth. This time, we talked about space opera, sci-fi romance, language barriers in marriage and all the crazy things I have to look forward to, and a bunch of other stuff. I also shared some of my thoughts and opinions on self-publishing myths, especially regarding the “tsunami of crap.” We coined a new word, “nerdaissance,” to describe all the awesome new stuff that’s coming out now, thanks to the ease of self-publishing.

So yeah, it was a great interview! I’ll definitely be cross-linking once it goes live.

From “Effective Book Covers.” Great panel with some very good artists and cover designers, including Isaac Stewart who does all the maps for Brandon Sanderson. Although some parts were geared toward illustrators, most of the advice was for writers (especially self-pubbing writers) who are looking to design their own covers. Lots of great and insightful perspectives from the visual arts side of things.

FRIDAY NIGHT BOOK SIGNING

Okay, I’ve got to be honest: when I went into the mass signing with my cardboard box of CreateSpace POD novels, I didn’t expect to sell anything. I figured that was just my ticket to get a seat at a table and hand out cards for Star Wanderers: Outworlder to some of the casual book browsers.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised! An uncle of one of my old mission companions was impressed enough to buy a couple of copies. I think he’s one of these guys who likes to buy things from new authors to help encourage them. It’s great to see people like that. He told me to keep writing, and I told him I definitely would!

Lots of people snagged the card for Outworlder, and I came up with a pretty decent pitch: “it’s about a starship pilot who accidentally marries a girl who doesn’t speak his language.” That raised a lot of eyebrows! A lot of people were really happy to see a science fiction story, especially a space adventure. I get the impression that there’s a craving for this kind of stuff in the market that isn’t currently being satisfied. So yeah, that was very encouraging!

After things wound down a bit, I wandered around the signing checking out some of the other books. Saw a couple that I recognized from the Kindle Boards, which was interesting. Chatted with them, as well as a bunch of geeky guys about chain mail, Halo, Frank Herbert, and all sorts of awesome stuff. Man, the best part about sci-fi/fantasy conventions is the chance to just talk with people! So much interesting stuff. It was great.

SATURDAY

 

 

From “Write For the Market or Write What You Know?” Another great panel. Definitely will be re-listening to that one.

From the main address with Megan Whalen Turner. She talked about book censorship and the need to teach children how to make their own reading choices, rather than keeping them sheltered and making the choice for them. She pointed out how every time a New York Times article comes out bemoaning some YA book for inappropriate content, it’s kind of hypocritical because there are so many other books they miss. The Golden Compass, for example, didn’t even pop up on their radar until the movie came out. Kids don’t magically become mature, well-adjusted adults when they turn 18–we have to teach them to make these choices (and mistakes) for themselves.

From “How Does Your Story Mean?” Great discussion on the writing process. Saw a lot of other good live-tweets during this one.

Okay, I take back what I said about the best panel of the convention. THIS was definitely the best. “The Engines of Exploration,” with Howard Taylor, Megan Whalen Turner, Roger White, James Owen, Kevin Evans, and Charles Stanford–the panel was packed. It basically turned into a round-robin discussion of which commodities are most essential to modern civilization, which ones will be the most valuable in the event of a societal collapse, and which ones will take us to the stars. The eventual consensus on each of these eventually came down to goats. Seriously. GOATS!

 

From “Writing Romance Without Erotica.” Lots of delicious awkwardness, as well as some really interesting thoughts and perspectives on the subject of romance. One of the panelists talked about the importance of “character penetration” without realizing about halfway through the panel how hilarious that phrase sounded in this context. But yeah, there was also a lot of wisdom in there as well. There are a lot of strong opinions about sex and romance floating around in this part of the world, so it was a very spirited and interesting panel.

 

 

The last panel of the convention (technically, symposium, but whatever) was “eBook Publishing” with some highly successful indies like Michaelbrent Collings. As you can tell from the tweets, it was a bit controversial, but very, very interesting. Questions were flying all over the place, on subjects ranging from formatting to building an audience. The biggest shock to me was that none of the panelists (none of them!) are on Smashwords. It’s a wild, wild west out here in indie-land. Makes me wonder, maybe I should publish to iTunes through another venue? Hmmmm…

So yeah, that was pretty much the whole convention/symposium. I finished it out by playing Alhambra with a bunch of friends from Kindal Debenham’s writing group who came down from Seattle and Idaho. Good, good times–it was actually kind of sad to say goodbye. Definitely worth coming 11 time zones to attend.

All I can say is that I am STOKED for Conduit!

Trope Tuesday: Planetville (aka Adventure Planets)

swmapsmall

Adventure towns…IN SPAAACE!!!

Seriously, that’s the best way to describe it.  In Westerns and TV serials, the heroes travel from town to town, with a new adventure in each place.  Well, in science fiction, we don’t hop towns, we hop planets.  Why?  Because we can.

Unfortunately, since planets and towns are actually pretty different kinds of places, there’s a lot of room to do things poorly and turn this trope into a cliche.  Any story that doesn’t consider (or at least lampshade) the implications of space travel and planetary colonization is in danger of becoming over-the-top campy–although, to be fair, there is an audience for that.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for this trope in fiction that takes itself a little more seriously.  In fact, I take issue with some of the descriptions on the Planetville page.  From tvtropes:

Unfortunately, because Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, stories about Planetville make no sense. Nobody seems to realize how BIG a planet is — everything in Planetville takes the same amount of time as stories set in towns or countries. In the updated Wild West story, the outlaws are “exiled from the planet” just like they’d be exiled from Dodge City, and have to quietly leave… instead of flat out challenging the authorities to find them when they have an entire planet in which to hide. When the space Nazis invade, they seem to need the same number of soldiers and time as the Earth Nazis needed to invade Europe. And when the crew of the Cool Starship finds the cure for the alien plague, the logistical issues of distributing it to an entire planet rarely get mentioned at all. These considerations are minimized or left out entirely in many stories.

To address these criticisms point by point:

1) Scale is relative to technology and the predominant modes of transportation.  When my ancestors crossed the plains to settle in modern-day Utah, they had to walk.  It took them months to get here and many of their family members died along the way.  Today, I can make the same trip by car in a day or two.  As technology changes, so does the sense of scale.

2) Unlike what some tropes would have you believe, not all planets are Earth-like.  In fact, it appears that most planets outside our solar system are wildly different.  In practical story terms, this means that any part of the world that’s remotely habitable is probably going to be immediately around the colony. Consequently, the local authorities probably will have the power to exile trouble makers from an entire planet, since exile from the colony would mean de facto exile from the planet as well.

3) Anyone venturing outside of the dome would have to carry just about everything necessary for life, including air, water, food, etc.  You might as well try to hide in Antarctica as hide on an alien planet.  It can be done, of course, but to do all that and stay hidden, that’s going to be tough.  You might as well set up a rival colony for all the effort–but at that point, the story is about a lot more than just hiding from the authorities.

4) If your planetary colonies are only as populous as an average WWII era city/town, then yeah, you’ll only need as many soldiers as it took to conquer them.  The biggest difference is that they’ll fly a really cool starship.

5) Again, if the planet isn’t habitable and the population is contained within a handful of relatively small colonies, then distribution shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

However, the tvtropes page does make this valid point:

A side effect of this is that the characters never realize that things can happen in parts of planets. You will never see aliens trying to capture a planet’s equator, or its polar caps — it’s the whole planet or bust.

In the end, I think the key to doing this trope well is to know your setting well enough to fit the story to it.  Tropes are tools, and when done well, this trope can accomplish everything it sets out to do while making perfect sense within the context of the story.

In my own work, this trope is most prevalent in the Star Wanderers series.  Every novella takes place at a different planet or space station, sometimes multiple planets per station.  Because most of the stars in this universe have only recently been settled, the colonies are small and terraforming is quite limited.  In Desert Stars, I used a similar concept, except with large domed areas of a single planet, instead of multiple planets (Adventure towns…UNDER THE DOME!!!).  In cases where the planets are Earth-like, however, or where travel between planets is costly and difficult, this trope doesn’t really ever come into play.

Productivity? Yeah, about that…

So, for the past week, I’ve kind of been between projects.  I finished the revisions for Stars of Blood and Glory last Saturday, after a week or two of light revisions, but since then it’s been a bit of a struggle. I’m still working on Star Wanderers: Benefactor, and progress on Lifewalker had been coming along, but haven’t managed to really immerse myself in either those stories yet.  As a result, I don’t really have much to show for this past week, other than a scene or two in Benefactor and a new first chapter for Lifewalker.

One of the problems, I think, is that I haven’t really been able to turn off my internal editor.  Even with my blog posts, I’m constantly going back and rewriting the previous sentence.  This sucks, because it slows down the writing, makes the process tedious and painful, and doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of my writing either (at least, not beyond a certain degree).

What I really need to do is run with a project until I hit my stride, and then do all I can just to keep a steady pace.  So that’s what I’m going to do with Lifewalker this next week: force myself to write without really caring too much about whether the stuff on the page is pretty good.  Because usually, when I don’t angst about it too much, it actually turns out pretty well.  Sure, I might write myself into a hole I can’t get out of (at least, not without breaking the story), but if that’s the case I can always toss out a couple of chapters and redo things.

So far, Lifewalker has surprised me quite a bit.  I have a general direction I want the story to go, and a vague idea of where the main character is going to go up, but when it comes to a particular scene, things will pop up out of nowhere that takes the story in all sorts of interesting directions.

For example, my main character is currently wandering a post-apocalyptic Utah with just a handful of possessions.  One of them is a copy of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire.  At one point, he spends a night among the people living in the ruins of Santaquin (“Sannakin”).  Out of nowhere, I decided to have him read them a chapter or two from the novel, which of course confuses the heck out of them.  So then they start asking him questions, like whether the world before the apocalypse was covered in ash like in the novel, which leads them to all sorts of wild and ridiculous speculations.  The aside only lasts a couple of paragraphs, but it takes things in a whole direction that I hadn’t planned it to–one that really fleshes out the world.

This is my first time writing post-apocalyptic fiction, and while it seems a bit daunting, when I actually sit down and focus on putting out new words, wild and interesting things happen.  The research is a bit daunting, but the story takes place two hundred years after the apocalypse event, so there’s actually a fair amount of leeway.  As long as I’ve got Google Earth running in the background, with ready access to Wikipedia when I need it, I should be all right.

As for Benefactor, don’t worry, that one’s coming along as well.  When I’ve had too much of the post-apocalyptic world, it’s actually quite refreshing to come back to the familiar universe of the Star Wanderers series.  Bouncing between the two stories should be a good way to avoid burnout–though at my current pace, that’s the least of my worries.

Next week is going to be fairly eventful.  I’ve got a job on Monday that will take up most of the day, and LTUE will keep me occupied all Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Still, I should be able to get in at least a chapter or two in both stories.  We’ll see how it goes.

That’s about all for now.  It’s getting late, so I’d better turn in.  Night!

Trope Tuesday: Arcadia

Happy_Arcadia_by_Konstantin_Makovsky

What happens when you cross the Ghibli Hills with the Call to Agriculture?  You get Arcadia, a simple, uncomplicated utopia where people keep to the good old ways and live in harmony with nature.  As home sweet home for the farm boy and the country mouse, it’s often the starting point for the hero’s journey, though you’ll also see an occasional retired badass or old master take up residence after their adventuring days are over.  Then again, it might just be a ten minute retirement before they’re back in harm’s way.

This is NOT a town with a dark secret or any other kind of twisted dystopia.  There are no knights templar who believe that Arcadia justifies the means.  If there is any sort of moral or message behind this place, it’s a green Aesop.  If there’s anyone who fights to defend this place, it’s usually the good shepherd.

Because of the Rule of Drama, it seems almost paradoxical that a place as peaceful as Arcadia would exist in any story.  However, sometimes it’s good to have the contrast.  It also helps to raise the stakes by giving the hero a home like this to fight for.  By keeping this in the back of their minds, it can be an effective way to keep them from crossing the despair event horizon.

The hero can visit Arcadia at any point in the story, but it tends to fulfill different roles depending on when they go there.

If the hero starts out in Arcadia, it’s usually the known, familiar world which he leaves behind after getting the call to adventure.  He may or may not be able to go back once the adventure is over, depending on how much he’s changed and whether he can adjust to a boring, peaceful life after so much adventure.  A good example of this is The Shire from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

If the hero ends in Arcadia, then it’s usually a way to show that everyone lived happily ever after (more or less).  Tolstoy was a big fan of this one, though he was also sure to show that living in Arcadia can be hard work–but in his view, the work is part of the reward.  In Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee ended in Arcadia on this note.  Frodo didn’t.

If the hero visits Arcadia during the middle of the story, it’s usually part of an Arcadian Interlude.  The down time may give him a chance to rest and recuperate, as with Medwyn’s realm in The Chronicles of Prydain, Resembool in Full Metal Alchemist, or Tom Bombadil in Lord of the Rings.  Alternately, it may be a leave your quest test–because really, who wouldn’t want a nice, peaceful life when faced with the hardships of adventure?

While the idyllic rural setting of Arcadia seems great to us now, this wasn’t always the case.  In all the old stories, when characters strayed into the country, they tended to find themselves in the Lost Woods.  And while Vice City is normally considered the exact opposite of Arcadia, the Shadowland, which may or may not be rural, also qualifies.

In the end, the thing that makes Arcadia great isn’t just the rural, agricultural setting, or the simple way of life, or the lack of poverty (or extravagant wealth, for that matter), it’s the combination of all three, combined with a sense that the place is truly incorruptible.  It may be full of simple-minded, naive little people who have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world, but it’s a place where you can feel safe.

In my own work, Terra 4 Dome from Desert Stars probably qualifies as this.  Even though it’s an archipelago of small islands rather than the rolling farmlands most often associated with Arcadia, it fulfills the same role more or less.  I don’t think I played with this trope at all in Bringing Stella Home, though in Stars of Blood and Glory, there are a couple of places that qualify.  And in Star Wanderers, various examples pop up from time to time, some more relevant than others.

As someone who dreams of settling down in a real-life version of Arcadia at some point, you can definitely expect to see me play with this trope in the future.

Back in Utah…again!

Chillin' on the observation car of the California Zephyr.

So Sunday afternoon, I boarded a train with most of my earthly possessions (at least, all of the ones I care to enjoy for the next year) and headed out to Utah.  I arrived Tuesday night, without a car, a job, or a place to live, but things have been working out really well so far and I hope to get all that stuff squared away in the next few days.

This was my sixth or seventh time traveling cross country by train, so I knew the drill.  The hardest part is getting enough sleep, so I brought a blindfold and some earplugs, and that actually worked out really well.  There were a lot of interesting people on the train, and I spent some time chatting with a few of them.  The train is one of the easiest place to make friends, just because the people who take it tend to be very laid back and friendly.

BAsUBItCIAAYenbMost of the time, though, I spent reading, figuring out my new phone, and writing.  Made some good progress on The Sword Keeper, though it looks like I’ll be putting it on hold for a while to get Stars of Blood and Glory ready for publication.  Wrote a little bit in Star Wanderers: Benefactor as well–man, whenever I need a good escape, it’s always fun to write a Star Wanderers story!  I have no idea when this one will be ready, but I think it will turn out well.

The train arrived in Provo late Tuesday evening, and I spent the night at my brother in law’s family, where I’m staying until I find a place to live.  Let me just say, it’s great to have friends and family to help you out when you really need it.  My old car was in the shop, so I set out on foot the next morning in search of an apartment.  Not much luck on that front so far, but I got my car back and found a few job leads, so it looks like I should be settled back down before long.

So why am I moving back to Utah?  A lot of reasons, but mostly because I just really like it out here.  I wanted to take a break before my next overseas adventure, catch up with some old friends and spend some time in a place that I know and love.  It also helps that there’s a good writing scene out here, with a bunch of great local conventions and conferences in the spring.

I didn’t always like Utah, but it’s really grown on me since I first came out here for college back in 2006.  The landscape is beautiful, with lots of amazing places to explore.  The people are really friendly and easy to get along with, even if your political views aren’t conservative (though admittedly, it’s harder).  The Mormon culture makes some things kind of quirky, but not in a way that makes it too hard for me to fit in.  In fact, if there’s any place in the world where I “fit in,” it’s probably here.

Things are kind of upside down right now, of course, but that will change once I find a place to live.  That’s going to take the focus away from my writing for a while, though hopefully not for too long.  In the meantime, today is another day, so I’d better get busy!

4:04 hours and 2.8k words. Not bad!

You know, sometimes I miss the days when I would churn out 1,000+ badly written words and throw up a badly written blog post, still reeling in awe from a white-hot creative heat.

Well, I think those days are coming back!  Except hopefully, my writing has improved since then.  Today was the first day I hit my four hour writing goal, and it was awesome.  Also, I wrote over a thousand words in two different projects: The Sword Keeper (which is my primary project right now) and Star Wanderers: Benefactor (a secondary project, though that may change in a month or so).  Not bad!

The really cool thing, though, is that when I woke up, my brain was actually wordsmithing.  It was weird–I was actually crafting sentences in my sleep.  Of course, being an idiot, I didn’t actually sit my butt in the chair until around 11:00 am.  Still, the words came out all right, and they didn’t stop coming all day.

I think my new time tracking goal is going to work out really well.  For most days this week, I managed to get at least 3:00 hours in.  Also, I noticed a lot of interesting things about the way I write.  Starting is the hardest part, especially first thing in the day.  Frequent short breaks can help, but the internet is a huge trap and should definitely be cut from my writing computer.  If I can’t manage 500 words/hour, chances are I’m not going to stay put for very long, but once I hit 800 wph, it’s smooth sailing.

Keeping a daily time goal also makes me conscious of a lot of things.  For example, when I first wake up, I look at the clock and think “if I do my full four hours right now, I’ll be finished by XX:XX.” That motivates me to start earlier, since it means I can finish earlier (or at least have less pressure later when I’m tired).  Also, it motivates me to write for longer lengths at a time, rather than writing in short, less productive bursts.  And even though I’m still keeping track of how many words I write, the pressure to hit a certain word count is less, since once the four hours are up, the goal is accomplished no matter what’s on the page.

Of course, all this mean I’m actually writing more.  Even on the days when I didn’t hit the full four hours, I wrote a lot more than I otherwise would have.  And the neat thing about writing is that the more you do it, the easier it comes.  It takes a while to build momentum, of course, but if you can just ease back on your inner editor and let the words come, they really will come.

So the next few days are going to be interesting.  I’m leaving Massachusetts on Sunday, to take the train across the country.  That will give me plenty of writing time, I’m sure, but once I arrive in Utah, things are going to get tricky.

My first priority will be finding an apartment, then a job–probably a crap job, though in this economy even those can be hard to find.  From what I’ve heard, things haven’t changed much since I left.  My writing is starting to take off, though, so I’m not too worried about the long-term–it’s the short-term that’s going to be a challenge.

I don’t know how long I’ll stay in Utah this time, but definitely until the summer.  There’s a lot of old friends to look up, and writing conferences to attend.  If I’m not totally broke by August, I’ll do my best to attend Worldcon as well.

That’s just about it for now.  I’ve got a lot of chores tomorrow, so I’d better get some sleep.  Later!

Hugo 2013 nominations, if you’re so inclined

So a bunch of the sf&f author blogs I follow have been mentioning that the nominations are open for the 2013 Hugo Awards, and listing their works that are eligible.  Since that seems to be the tradition, I thought I’d do the same.

For those of you who don’t know, the Hugos Awards are the highest awards given in the literary fields of science fiction & fantasy.  They’re held at Worldcon each year, and voted on by everyone who is registered for the convention.  If you plan on attending Worldcon this year, or if you attended it in 2012, you are eligible to nominate!

At this point in my career, I know it’s pretty unrealistic to think that I have a chance of winning.  Still, it doesn’t hurt to dream a little.  I figure that since all the other authors in the field list their eligible works each year, I should do the same.

Star Wanderers I (thumb)

I have one work that qualifies for the novelette category: Star Wanderers: Outworlder.  There are others in the series that also qualify, but I think this is the best one, and also the one that works best as a standalone.  It’s available for free from every major ebook retailer, so if you haven’t already read it, feel free to pick up a copy.

That’s just about it.  I didn’t publish any novels in 2012, but I should have at least a couple out for consideration next year.  The nomination form for the 2013 Hugo is here, and the nominations are open until March 10th.

That’s just about it.  Thanks, and I’ll see you around!

A new daily writing approach

So last summer, I decided to stop tracking my daily writing word count.  There were a lot of reasons for this, mostly having to do with the way it led me to focus on the wrong things and beat myself up in ways that were ultimately counterproductive.

The trouble is, I’d structured almost my whole writing life around keeping track of word counts.  Without an easy way to measure my daily progress, it was really hard to know whether I was being productive or not.  As a consequence, I didn’t push myself as hard as I could have, and ended up bouncing around between projects without really finishing anything.

Well, I think I’ve figured out a solution to that.  Instead of tracking daily word count, I’m going to use a countdown timer to make sure I spend at least X number of hours each day writing new words.  Whenever I take a break to do something else, even if it’s writing related, I’ll pause the timer, then start it up again when I get back to writing.

I tried it out last week, using a program called TimeLeft.  It worked out pretty well, I think.  Definitely gave me a lot more insight into my writing process.  I think it will help me to get some good habits back, like writing in the morning and staying focused for longer.  It will also help to have something I can accomplish each day.  It doesn’t matter how much I write, just that I spend the time actually writing.

To start out, I’m going to shoot for four hours of daily writing time.  It might not sound like a lot, and without a day job perhaps it isn’t, but I think it’s a good starting point.  Then again, if the guys at Writing Excuses are right, I might end up scaling back a bit.  Either way, I’ll probably end up adjusting that goal over the next few weeks.

Other writing stuff I’d like to figure out this year:

  • How to juggle two projects at the same time.  I’m kind of doing it now with The Sword Keeper and Star Wanderers: Benefactor, but it’s tough to keep one of them from getting the short end of the stick.
  • How to go for a week without checking my ebook sales.  Kris Rusch had a really good post on this last week.  I’ve tried it before, but I always end up breaking down and checking.  Well, no longer!
  • How to write good short stories.  I think I’ve put it off for too long.  Yes, novels and short stories are different arts, but they’re both writing, and I’m a writer.  Time to learn.

That’s just about it for now.  Hopefully, it will turn out well.

A not-so-obligatory New Year’s resolution

First of all, happy New Years!  I hope you’re all looking forward to 2013 as much as I am.  Last year was full of awesome life-changing experiences, but I have a feeling that this one is going to be even better.

So after chatting about resolutions with some old friends, I’ve decided that a good new year’s resolution should be more than just another mundane daily goal.  Those are great, but you shouldn’t just set them at the beginning of the year and forget about them around February or March, you should adjust and rework them constantly no matter what time of the year it is.

Instead, a good resolution is some extraordinary task or challenge with a deadline of December 31st.  Basically, it’s something from your bucket list that you hope to accomplish that year.  Because it’s extraordinary, it’s not something that you forget in a month or two.  And the deadline gives you a sense of urgency, so you don’t put it off for “someday.”

With that in mind, here’s my 2013 resolution:

Hike four of the seven peaks of Utah County.

I was originally going to go for all seven, but I’m not (yet) an experienced climber, and some of the peaks look a little difficult.  Others, though, seem pretty doable.  I’ve hiked Y Mountain several times, and got a chance to do a little hiking in Georgia.  Four shouldn’t be too much, even with my relatively limited skill level right now.

Here are the seven peaks:

Of course, I’ll wait until June to make the first hike (probably Provo Peak).  In the meantime, I’ll do what I can to get ready: eat healthy, climb a few smaller mountains, and otherwise get in shape for the big ones.

As far as writing goes, I’m going to go back on the early morning writing schedule and shoot for three hours of writing new words per day.  My monthly goal is to start / finish / publish at least one thing, and my yearly goal is still to finish at least two novel-length works (2012 was Star Wanderers I-IV and Stars of Blood and Glory).

But it’s hard to call any of those goals resolutions, since most of them are probably going to change over the coming weeks and months.  It’s hard to know exactly what life’s going to throw at me once I get back in Utah, so I’m going to stay flexible and just try to do the best I can.

I do want to publish Stars of Blood and Glory next month, and I think I can finish The Sword Keeper before then–if not, then definitely Star Wanderers: Benefactor.  After that, I’d like to do a print version of Star Wanderers I-IV with some decent cover art.  And Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver will probably be out sometime in the spring.

Beyond that, who knows?  It all depends on where the muse takes me.  One thing’s for sure, though–I’ll definitely keep writing.