CONduit 2010 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Space Pirates of CONduit

So this weekend I went to CONduit up in Salt Lake city. It was a great experience! Lots of fun, lots of friends, and lots of excellent panels on writing.

The usual crowd was there: Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, L. E. Modessitt, Bob Defendi, Dan Willis, Paul Genesse, Julie Wright, John Brown, Larry Corriea, James Dashner, Eric James Stone, and tons of others. Besides the bigger names, I saw a lot of other aspiring writers like myself who have yet to make it big–friends from World Fantasy and LTUE. It was good to catch up and reconnect.

Friday had a number of excellent panels. My personal favorite was A Writer’s Life, in which a number of relatively newer writers gave advice on breaking in and talked about what their lives are like now that they’re published.

At one point on the panel, a fearful aspiring writer asked the question: “when do you know when it’s time to quit and give up?” The responses from the panelists were quite insightful. Basically, the only way to know that you need to quit writing is if you can imagine your life without it. If you can’t, you may feel that you’re writing currently sucks, but you’ve still got stories in you, and those stories need to find a voice.

There were a number of other gold nuggets on that panel. Larry Corriea surprised me by saying that there is no such thing as an “outline writer” or a “discovery writer”–that these concepts simply describe writing tools, and that different projects require different tools. Julie Wright said that if you are not enough without a publishing deal, you will never be enough with it. John Brown (I think) said that writer’s block doesn’t exist: if you’re blocked, it means either something’s wrong with you or something’s wrong with the story.

Saturday had a number of excellent panels as well. The guest of honor was Barbara Hambly, and she was a delight: witty, saucy, and full of interesting stories and great advice. For her main address, she simply talked about how her life has changed in the past thirty years, but it was fascinating.

One of the more interesting things she said was that God places an angel with a flaming sword in front of every door in our lives that we shouldn’t take. Sometimes, it seems that you’re simply staring down a corridor full of guarded doors–and sometimes, especially towards the end of life, it seems that you’re staring down a corridor and the angels are saluting you. That made her tear up–she’s had a long, rough, yet interesting and vibrant life.

When asked to elaborate on the decline of the fantasy market in the past twenty years, she gave a very interesting response. Today, instead of buying fantasy novels by the pound, fans are immersing themselves in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. Because it requires much less effort to play a game than to read a book, people are turning to games as a substitute.

Another fascinating panel was Riding the Rocket, in which a number of established authors discussed the career blast off and what to expect. Lee Modessitt made the point that there are two basic approaches to writing: storytelling or writing excellent prose. In order to be successful, a writer has to master both, but they generally start out better at one than the other. The key is to know which one you’re weaker at and consciously work on it.

When asked about their greatest fear, the unanimous answer was that they’re terrified their next book will tank and that they’ll fade into obscurity–that they’ll be forced to go back to that dreaded day job. The only way to deal with that, though, is to keep writing, keep working on your craft, and control the things you can while not fretting too much about the things you can’t. If you do what you can, things will generally work out for the best.

There were a ton of other excellent panels, other nuggets of wisdom. I recorded a number of panels, but I’ve decided not to post the mp3s publicly here: if you want them, just email me and I’ll send you a copy.

All in all, I’m very glad I came! Besides all the panels and networking opportunities, it was just a lot of fun to hang out and talk science fiction and fantasy with a bunch of like minded people. CONduit is an awesome convention–if you’re a local Utah writer and you have the chance to come, I definitely recommend it!

CONduit post coming shortly

Just a micro-quick update, since it’s 2:00 am and I need to meet up with friends tomorrow morning to carpool to Salt Lake.

The first day of CONduit was awesome–there were several excellent panels on writing, as well as many familiar faces from the local writing scene. I’ll blog all about it this weekend, after the big day tomorrow.

Wrote 3k words today and killed off a couple major characters. Invigorating, as always. Only 7k words to go to the end.

Goodnight.

Weird slump

Man, I’m going through a really weird slump these days. Yesterday, I wrote 2.5k words, and today, I only wrote 1.5k words–this, in spite of the fact that I’m only working about three hours a day. It’s kind of frustrating.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m right at the end of this novel. I’ve got 10k words to go, only 12 scenes, but I’m kind of burned out on it. I already know it’s going to need another revision after this one, and while I’m trying hard to fix things, it’s more on the overall story level, not on the detailed polish level, where I usually thrive.

The real truth, though, is probably that my days are split up so weird. I work from three to six, and most days I have obligations in the evening (Leading Edge, Institute, FHE, etc). To add to that, Tuesdays and Thursdays I donate plasma in the mornings, which usually takes up a couple hours. When you’re already in the mood to procrastinate, it doesn’t help it when your free time comes in 2 to 3 hour chunks.

Oh well. At least I’m still producing.

CONduit starts tomorrow, and I am totally stoked. Last year was excellent, and I’m looking forward very much to this year as well. I don’t think there’ll be too many agents and editors there, but there will be a ton of other writers, most of whom I expect I’ll see at other major conventions across the country.

Speaking of conventions, I’m thinking very seriously about attending Dragoncon this year. When I spoke with Dan Wells at the Provo Library event a couple weeks ago, he told me that DragonCon is going to be big for writers this year, on account of Worldcon being in Australia and World Fantasy being in Ohio.

I’ve got a friend in Atlanta who can put me up and/or has friends who can as well, so housing shouldn’t be too difficult. My Dad’s giving me the old Buick, and it’s got lots of space, so I could probably fit four or five people in it. If we took turns driving, we could probably make it out there nonstop, and membership only costs like $80. At ten tanks of gas split by five people, plus maybe $100 for food and other expenses, it seems like a pretty good deal. Anyone interested?

If I’m going to Dragoncon this year, I suppose I should make it my goal to get Mercenary Savior polished and ready for it. That should be enough time–a month or two to let it sit, then a couple months to polish it. Definitely doable.

In the meantime, I’ll be finishing this draft this weekend, inshallah. I’d like to finish it on the bus to Salt Lake, but I doubt that’ll be the case. 10k words is a lot of writing, and I’ll be busy all day at the con. I’ll let you know how it goes, though–stay tuned!

Falling behind

Man, CONduit is at the end of this week, and I’ve still got a good 14k words to go in Mercenary Savior. Today, I only wrote 1,300 words. I have no idea why my productivity has fallen so much, but it’s not good.

It might not be a totally bad thing, though. I’m having trouble finding a ride up for Friday, so I might end up spending two or three hours on the bus. If that’s the case, I might have some writing time then.

I read something interesting on Dave Farland’s daily kick (the email newsletter he sends out–it’s free, btw, and very helpful). Basically, he said that it’s better to wait to submit something until it’s absolutely perfect than to submit something for the sake of submitting it.

This is making me rethink my plan to start submitting Mercenary Savior right after I finish this draft. It’s much improved, I think, from the first couple of drafts, but it still needs a lot of work.

As I run down my list of revision notes, I keep thinking “dang, I didn’t pull that off as well as I’d hoped” or “that last scene could have been better.” It’s hard, though, to juggle so many changes; you can only do so much work at once. Mercenary Savior is going to need another revision after this one before it’s polished.

The only thing is…that means I only have one novel to submit to agents/editors. Is that a bad thing? Now that I’m in the real world, I’m anxious to launch my writing career, but at the same time I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot.

I suppose the first thing to do is to finish this beast. Ugh.

When life gets in the way

Just a quick post before I go to bed. Things are coming along well with the revision of Mercenary Savior–I fully expect to be finished by next week (hopefully by Tuesday).

That said, these past couple of days have been very unproductive, and it’s been very frustrating. I feel as if tons of little things have been getting in the way.

Work is from 3:00 to 6:00, which can be nice but breaks the day in half, and donating plasma always seems to suck up a ton of time. Besides that, I’ve been applying for work, and THAT certainly takes up quite a bit of time mental space.

The main problem, though, is the urge to procrastinate. These little things wouldn’t pop up all the time if I 1) were unusually excited about this book, or 2) had the iron discipline to buckle down and just do it. I’m working on both of those, but in the meantime, it’s frustrating.

Still, I am producing. I wrote about 1.5k words yesterday, and 2.3k today. Nowhere near the 4k+/day I was hoping to write, but not bad. Things are progressing.

Part of it may be the fact that my only computer right now is a netbook. Netbooks are nice for traveling (I carry mine literally everywhere), but they aren’t great as primary machines. Also, they tend to break down faster than regular laptops. Mine’s probably got another year left, but the wear and tear is starting to show.

To remedy that, I’m thinking very seriously of building my own computer. Tomorrow, BYU is having a surplus sale, and I’m hoping to pick out a decent LCD monitor or two, plus a keyboard and mouse. I’ve picked out all the other parts online (I’ll blog about that later), but I’ll probably hold off until the end of the month to buy them all. I want to prove to myself that I can make more money in a month than I spend.

I know that a new computer won’t solve my writing problems, but it will be really cool, and it is something that I need–if not this very second, then at least before my netbook breaks down. Plus, I’m hoping to learn a lot from the experience of building it from parts.

Other than that, things are good. I will definitely finish Mercenary Savior by next week before CONduit, and the revision is significantly better than the old draft. Before long, inshallah, I’ll have another manuscript to float around with editors/agents.

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.

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.

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.

Quarterly report

So I figure that since I want to write professionally, it would be a good idea to keep track of my writing and do quarterly updates on my blog. Here’s the first one for this year:

The red line shows my daily writing word count, the blue line a running seven day total. The graph starts January 1st and goes to March 31st.

For the first part of January, the seven day total was high for a week because I’d just finished Bringing Stella Home 2.0. It dropped down way low for a while because I was busy moving into the Barlow center, starting my internship, and starting a new novel at the same time. Combining all three of those things at the same time made for very little progress, until about the middle part of the month.

Things progressed at a moderate rate (about 1k words per day) from the middle of January until snowmageddon, which hit us in the second week of February. I got a lot of writing done while snowed in, and my work in progress at the time, To Search the Starry Sea 1.0, got a lot of momentum behind it.

That momentum started to taper off, as I realized that the story I was writing was different than the story I had in my head. I swear, this happens EVERY time I try to write a novel. I tried to stick with the story in my head, but the gap got wider and wider until I realized the story just wasn’t working.

At the end of February, I decided to put it on the back burner and let my ideas simmer for a while. I’ll probably pick it up again at some point in the future, but not in the short term–I need to put it away for a while. I’m sure I’ll finish it someday, though.

So then, in the beginning of March, I went through all the comments I’d received on Bringing Stella Home. The HUGE spike you see right around the middle of the month represents all the revision notes I put together for the 3.0 draft. I read through the entire manuscript in about a week and a half, made a detailed scene by scene outline, and figured out my strategy for the revision.

Things dropped off again pretty sharply the last couple weeks of March because that was right around when I was fired from my internship. That was one hell of a stressful week. They picked up pretty quick after that, though, because 1) I had a lot more free time, and 2) I’m REALLY excited about this project.

Looking ahead, I think if I push myself, I can finish Bringing Stella Home 3.0 by the end of April. It will be difficult because I’ll be looking for an apartment and a job at the same time, but after next week I won’t have to worry about schoolwork anymore (potentially for the rest of my life…whoa). Definitely, I’ll have it done in time for CONduit 2010.

One thing I need to work on a lot more is submitting. I’ve got a list of agents to submit Genesis Earth to, I just haven’t got around to sending it to them all. The responses I’ve received have been generally encouraging: all rejections, but about half form rejections, half personalized in some way. I do think this book will find it’s way in print, though it may not be my first to be published.

Even though Bringing Stella Home will probably need at least one more major revision before the full manuscript is ready to be sent out to editors/agents, I can probably polish the first three chapters enough to shop it around sometime in May. I’m not sure if that’s what I’ll do, but it’s an option. It depends on whether I jump right in to the 4.0 revision after finishing the current draft, which I probably won’t do; better to let it sit for a while.

Instead, I think I’ll jump right in to finishing that novel I started in late 2008, Hero in Exile. The title will have to change (as always), but I’ve got a lot of fresh ideas for it, plus the enthusiasm to pull it off. In many ways, Hero in Exile is a non-linear sequel to Bringing Stella Home, so if I get a deal with the one, I can always pitch the other as the next in the series. That’s a huge plus–and a major reason why I’ll be enthusiastic about the project, since the two novels build off of each other.

Anyway, that’s what things are looking like from here. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I’ll read a couple of friends’ novels (I haven’t forgotten about you, Jakeson and Drek!), graduate, get an apartment, get a job (inshallah), write an article for Mormon Artist, go to a con or two, and maybe even get a girlfriend and/or figure out what to do with my life.