Tag: Daft Punk

Birthday wish list

So my birthday is coming up a little later this week, and my family has been asking what’s on my wish list.  In order to help them out, as well as anyone who might feel inclined to give me stuff, I thought I’d post it here on my blog.  Some of the stuff might be reaching a bit, but what the heck, might as well throw it out there.

Item One: Signed First Edition Hardcover Copy of Legend by David Gemmell

This is the ultimate gift of all time for me.  It is my life’s goal to obtain a signed copy of Legend, which is made all the more difficult by the fact that David Gemmell passed away in 2006.  He is, by far, my favorite fantasy author, and this book is my favorite of everything he’s written.

I don’t expect to fulfill this life ambition on this particular birthday, but in the unlikely chance that it lies within your power to help me obtain a copy, know that I will be your slave for life in exchange for this priceless gift.  Literally.  With chains and everything (or caramel topping and whipped cream, if that’s your preference).

Item Two: Göttmann Dress Cap

Specifically, the Dallas-2 design pictured here.  I have no idea how or where you’d get it, but that’s what I want–specifically from Göttmann Caps and Hats, in Germany.  I’ve got a similar cap right now and it’s pretty spiffy, but it’s from Ross so the quality is pretty cheap.  I need an authentic writerly cap like this to give me x2 pretentiousness and +5 charisma.

Item Three: Kant Stop The Music T-Shirt

This one’s a little pricey for a T-shirt, but I absolutely love the design.  What better way to combine your love of music with your love of 19th century philosophy?

Item Four: Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress is one of my favorite people to listen to at a con, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book.  If you want to get me a book on writing, this would probably be the best one (or, alternately, either of Orson Scott Card’s books: Character and Viewpoint or How To Write Science Fiction & Fantasy).

Item Five: Anything by Hiyao Miyazaki

You simply can’t go wrong with this awesome Japanese director.  I already own Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Castle in the Sky.  Even though it was done by Miyazaki’s son, I wouldn’t mind a copy of Tales of Earthsea either. 

Item Six: Interstella 5555

My favorite anime ever!  Now out on Blu-Ray!

Item Seven: Mirage: the Remixes by Armin Van Buuren

Recently, I’ve really gotten into trance & progressive music, and Armin Van Buuren is one of my favorite artists.  I skip lunch each week just so I can listen to his radio show, A State of Trance.  His latest album, Mirage, is really good, and so I’d like to pick up a copy sometime of the remixes.  Alternately, you could get me the Imagine remixes album, or anything by Cerf, Mitiska, & Jaren.

So that’s pretty much my wish list.  Of course, if for some reason you’re not in a position to get me any of this awesome swag, I’ll take a gift card or a sweater or a homemade whatever <grumble>.  But if you do get me a gift card, please make it an Amazon gift card, so I can buy more books and music.  And if it is within your power to get me a signed hardcover first edition copy of Legend…let’s just say, I’m only partially joking about the slave thing.

Soundtrack for an untitled book

I’ve got this great idea for a novel, with a rough plot outline, an awesome ending, setting and characters all worked out, even the soundtrack–but no title.

I enjoy making soundtracks for my novels, but this is the first time I’ve made one before writing the first draft.  Usually, my first drafts are so all over the place that I end up hating whatever music I try to associate with my work–that, or the feel of the book ends up being so different from the feel of the soundtrack that I just have to abandon it.

In spite of all this, I couldn’t really help myself from putting together a playlist for my next big project, a Gaia Nova novel combining characters from Bringing Stella Home and Desert Stars.  Here it is:

For me, soundtracks are all about the emotion that a story evokes.  I’m going for a tense and gritty feel, with heart-rending losses and soul-crushing defeats interspersed with poignant moments of personal triumph.

The really cool thing is that the soundtrack has helped me out a ton with the outlining process.  I’ve spent a lot of time in the past month hiking in the mountains around Provo, just listening to music and thinking about this story.  Whenever I put on the soundtrack, something would click and I’d see exactly what the story needed.  I kid you not, all of the plot twists and big reveals came to me while listening to this music.

Now if only I could come up with a title…

Genesis Earth is now live!

That’s right!  Genesis Earth, my first epublished novel, is now available on Amazon for $2.99.  Check it out, post a review, tell your friends!

I decided to price it at $2.99 for a few reasons:

First, that’s the lowest price at which Amazon allows a 70% royalty rate.  When you buy the book, I get $2.05, which is a very nice royalty even for a traditionally published book.  A lot of readers like to know that their money is going to support the author, rather than the people exploiting the author, and that’s only really possible at this price point.  I might drop the price to $.99 at some point in the future, but only for a short period of time for a special promotion.

Second, there’s the question of value perception.  I don’t want people to think that my book is worth less than a cheeseburger at McDonalds.  Sure, I might get more buyers if I price it lower, but I don’t want to attract people who will buy it and never read it; I want to attract people who will read it, love it, and buy all my other stuff–and I plan to put out a lot more work before the end of the year!

Third, and perhaps most importantly, I fully believe that this book is worth that much.  It’s worth at least that much.  Granted, if I didn’t have to worry about money, I’d gladly give it away for free (and what an awesome world that would be!), but even so, if you’re a person who enjoys thoughtful, character driven science fiction, I’m confident that you’ll come away from Genesis Earth feeling satisfied.

So yeah, Genesis Earth is finally up!  Buy it, read it, blog it, tweet it, facebook link it, start format…er, yeah, you get the picture.  Wheee!!

I’m going to start guest blogging on a bunch of other blogs, but don’t worry, I’ll keep this blog updated as well.  I also need to get back into writing my next novel, so I’d better do that now.  See you around!

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.

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!

The Obligatory Christmas Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don’t ask for much…

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

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

Change in direction

Just a quick update on things before I go to bed.

After giving it some thought, I’ve decided to put Into the Nebulous Deep on hold for the time being.  The main reason for this is that it’s a direct sequel to Mercenary Savior, and if the first one doesn’t sell…yeah, not the best business decision.

I figure the best way to do it is to have a series of indirectly linked standalone novels set in the same world.  That way, a publisher could pick up any one of them after rejecting all the others, but if you want to bundle them into a series and sell them together, you can do that too.

That’s my strategy–I like the universe I built for Mercenary Savior, and I’m going to keep it for the foreseeable future, but for now, the trilogies and duologies will have to wait.  In any case, I’ve written down my major ideas for ITND, so I’m sure I’ll be able to pick up where I left off if/when MS sells.

Instead, I’m going to start working through the second draft of Worlds Away from Home. It needs a ton of work, but having finished the rough draft, I know that the story has potential.  At this point, I’m actually very enthusiastic about it, so hopefully that will help drive momentum.

Right now, I’m in the outlining stage.  I’m taking a page from Dan Wells and using his seven point story structure to draw out all the plot lines and character arcs.  When I did this for MS 4.0, I had to outline about fifteen arcs before I felt it was sufficiently tight; it will probably be the same for WAFW 2.0 as well.

Currently, I’m in the middle of outlining chapter six.  If all goes well, I’ll finish outlining and start writing by the end of the week.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a lot of submitting.  Sent out another short story to Leading Edge–oh, and by the way, they accepted a poem of mine, so expect to see that in a forthcoming issue.  I also submitted the latest draft (5.0) of Genesis Earth to a few agents, so hopefully that will lead to something positive.

In other news, I’m looking for a job again.  Oh joy.  I’m hoping things will work out with the wilderness job, but if not, I still need something to tide me over for the Christmas season.  It’s stressful, but at least I’m not broke yet, which is good.  If I can’t find work and have to buy gear for the wilderness training, however, I just might be.

I’m confident things will work out, however.  I’ve found that they always do, even if not in the way I wanted or expected.  Just keep swimming.

In the meantime, check out this AWESOME 8-bit remix of one of the tracks leaked from Daft Punk’s upcoming album for the movie Tron. Dude…this makes me so incredibly happy.  And the 8-bit art!  I nabbed it and turned it into my avatar for the Quark forums.  In case you want to use it, here’s a copy.

8-bit Daft Punk FTW! The only thing more epic would be if Daft Punk and E.S. Posthumus joined forces–but if that happened, hosts of heavenly angels would descend upon our planet and usher in an era of global peace and universal prosperity. But dude, I would give my firstborn son to acquire that music.

You laugh, but I’m only half joking…

DAFT PUUUNK!!

So a few days ago I discovered this French techno group called Daft Punk.  They are freaking amazing!  I’ve been listening to them nonstop ever since–and when I say non-stop, I mean it quite literally.  Their music is so awesome, it blows my mind!

Take the stuff they’re doing for the new Tron movie, for example.  When I listened to Derezzed for the first time, I was like “whoa.” I’m not really all that into techno, but that track really grabbed me (I actually prefer this edit, which is even more epic than the original).  The highly compressed quality of the sound, the awesome industrial tone, the intensity and power behind it–immediately, I was like “this is good stuff.”

So then I looked a little more into Daft Punk, and I discovered some interesting things.  Probably the most interesting is their image: as you can see from the picture, they wear these crazy robot helmets every time they’re in public.  I guess it started because the two guys are kind of shy, or maybe because they wanted to distance their personal lives from their public persona–either way, you’ve got to admit, the concept is just freaking awesome.  Robot DJs in leather and chrome FTW!

The more I found out about them, the awesomer it got.  For example, did you know that they released a feature length anime to go along with one of their albums?  That’s right–a feature length film, set to nothing but music.  And what’s more, it’s science fiction! 

Interstella 5555 is just about the cheesiest, awesomest sci fi you can get–it’s like it’s taken right out of the 70s, when Star Wars was the big new thing and space was still this magical place that everyone felt we were destined to go some day.

But the music–man, this isn’t the throbbing powerhouse kind of stuff they’re doing for Tron.  This music has depth and emotion; it’s much more innocent, and resonates on a more personal level with me than their hardcore techno stuff–which, don’t get me wrong, I still like.  It’s just that with their Discovery album (which became the basis for Interstella), I feel that I can listen to any song no matter what mood I’m in, and by the end of the track I’ll be smiling.

In short, Daft Punk is AMAZING.  What more can I say?  Squeeee! You should totally give their stuff a try.  Maybe it’s not for you, but who knows–maybe you’ll be surprised.  At least check out Interstella 5555, because it is awesome.

Man, I’ve watched and/or listened to this film maybe half a dozen times in the past four days, and it just doesn’t get old.  Like so many other things, it makes me wish I’d grown up in the 70s and 80s, when science fiction was good. Even though it came out in 2003, Interstella 5555 just seems to channel the spirit of that time.

Anyhow, I’d better wrap this up before I get all fanboy crazy and start slathering at the mouth.  But if you want to be the most amazing person on the planet, please!!! get me Interstella 5555 for Christmas!  Are you reading this, Mom?  And as for the rest of you, don’t worry–I’d be totally happy with any of their other albums, hint hint.

🙂 🙂 🙂