Tag: steampunk

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!

Flash Gold by Lindsay Buroker

All Kali McAlister wants is to leave Moose Hollow far, far behind–and with her dogless sled, the $1,000 prize for the sled race is just her ticket.  But with pirates, gangsters, and thugs in the Yukon after her late father’s alchemical secrets, she’ll be lucky to make it to the finish line alive.  And then there’s that striking man by the mysterious name of Cedar–why is he helping her?

This was a fun steampunk adventure story.  It was fast-paced, well-written, and quite enjoyable; Buroker knows how to hook a reader with interesting characters and conflicts.  I’m looking forward to reading more books set in this universe.

That said, I did have a few issues with this book.  At some parts, the dialog came across as wooden because the characters’ words and reactions didn’t match the intensity of the scene.  For example, Kali and Cedar got caught up in a couple of friendly discussions during gunfights, one about her automatic reloading rifle (which was somewhat excusable) and one about the status of their relationship (which felt a little contrived).  Also, the climax of the story revolves around a late third act info dump, which is a pet peeve of mine.  It didn’t bring the story to a screeching halt, but it did feel a little clumsy.

None of those kept me from enjoying the story, but they were definitely things I noticed.  My biggest issue was probably a lack of real dept or thoughtfulness; what I like to call a “stuff happens, the end” kind of story.  The main character had good internal motivations, but no real internal conflict.  For example, she had this whole history with a previous lover betraying her trust, but she didn’t really struggle much with learning to trust again; all that old baggage was just a part of her background.

Overall, though, this was a fun action-adventure romp.  The steampunk setting was great, one that I’d like to come back and revisit.  And in spite of my critiques, I didn’t feel cheated by this story at all; it really was an enjoyable read.  For $.99, what do you have to lose?

You can find Flash Gold at the author’s site here, or at Smashwords and Barnes & Noble (for some reason, the Amazon link appears to be broken).

Christmas break 2009

Christmas was great this year!  I spent it in Texas, with my extended family–the family on my dad’s side, who I almost never see.  The break has been a lot of fun so far!  No school or work obligations, lots of time to lay back and relax, plenty of games to play and books to read, plus fun people to hang out with–it’s been great!

Most of my cousins are young teenagers right now, and are a lot different than I remember.  However, I was able to get some presents for them that I think worked out well.  David is into his iPod, so I got him some U2 albums (How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and Joshua Tree).  Savannah and Nash are both avid fantasy readers, so I got Savannah Mistborn: The Final Empire and Nash Victory of Eagles (the one chain bookstore in Midland didn’t have His Majesty’s Dragon, so I got him another from the series).  Daniel, I didn’t know what to get, so I gave him my old camera.

Ashley (who is older) was telling me about how she lived abroad and wants to spend some time in Australia, so I got a travelogue on Australia by the same guy who did A Walk in the Woods. Based on her reaction, I think she’s going to like it!

It was much easier to get stuff for direct family, since I know them better.  For Kate, I got Soulless, a steampunk / paranormal mystery novel that had an awesome release party at World Fantasy 2009.  I don’t know if she’ll like the book, but the party was very steampunk / regency fantasy with the cosplayers, so I think she will.  I got Danny The Screwtape Letters, since I know he likes that kind of religious fiction–turns out he’s been meaning to read it for a while!  Mykle, I got the first book in C. S. Friedman’s latest series, since I know that she’s his favorite author–24 hours after Christmas, he’s already 200+ pages into it!  And for Sarah and Mykle, I got them both $20 gift certificates to Pioneer Book in downtown Provo.  They were very happy with that!

I wish I’d had the time to get presents for everyone in the family, but with moving out, coming here so quickly, and not having a car (or much of an idea what they wanted), it just wasn’t very practical.  I did get my mom a gift certificate to B&N, but I haven’t gotten anything for my dad yet.  I will, though–he wants stuff from our Christmas memories, and I happen to have all my old childhood journals in my carry on luggage.  Lots of Christmas memories in those!

I’m satisfied with what I got, even though it wasn’t all that much.  Besides the generic clothes, socks, ties, candy, popcorn, and other stuff, I got a spiffy tool kit from Robin and a flexible tripod from pop.  Very nice!  They will add some weight to my luggage, but I think I can give some of it to mom or pop to bring home.

As far as writing goes, I’m less than 13k words from the end of Bringing Stella Home 2.0.  It’s not quite ready for alpha readers yet, but I want to get it ready soon (it’s going to take so much work! <sob>).  If I average 2.6k words over the next five days, I’ll have it finished in time to start something new by new years!

That’s the goal.  As for what the next novel is going to be about…let’s just say it’s Homer’s Odyssey meets C. J. Cherryh and Ursula K. Le Guin in space, where Telemachus is a girl and the story is primarily from her point of view.

I hope I can pull it off!

Goal shift for Ashes

These past few weeks, I’ve been killing myself trying to write Ashes of the Starry Sea. I’ve made some good progress, as you can see on the sidebar.  Today I broke 200 pages.  Not too bad.

However, the pace has just been killing me.  4k words per day is something I can do…but 4k words per day on the same project?  It’s burning me out.

What’s more, to keep up the pace, I’ll have to put all my other projects completely on hold for the month of July.  That, or write MORE than 4k per day, which would be excruciatingly painful.

So I looked at my calendar tonight and figured that if I pushed back my self-imposed deadline for Ashes to the weekend before school starts, I can cut my daily wordcount in that book in half.  2k per day in Ashes–not bad.  That I can do.

What’s more, with the other 2k, I’ll have enough room to work on my other projects, Genesis Earth 3.0 and Bringing Stella Home 2.0.  I’m starting to get really excited for those, very motivated.  For Bringing Stella Home, I’m practically chomping at the bit.  I want to make that story shine!

Inshallah, juggling two projects at a time will be helpful, not harmful.  During the school year, when I was juggling work, school, and writing, it didn’t work.  Now, however, with writing the only major obligation, I’m hoping that two projects will help keep my creative mind fresh, if that makes sense.  When I get burned out on Ashes at 2pm, I can switch to Genesis Earth and work on something that excites me.  When I get burned out on that at 9pm, I’ll be excited about Ashes again.  Etc etc.

Besides, if I want to be a professional writer, project juggling is an important skill I’ll need to learn.  Inshallah, I’ll get it to work this time.

Wow!  If all goes according to plan, I’ll have all three novels finished and polished before school starts at the end of August!  July to write Genesis Earth 3.0, August to write Bringing Stella Home 2.0, and both months to finish Ashes of the Stary Sea 2.1.  Yeah!

In other news, Charlie finished Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson and reviewed it on her blog.  I was also reading Warbreaker, but about 200 pages in found that it just wasn’t working  for me.  I’ll probably finish  it someday, but for now, it’s on hold.

I hate to say anything bad about it, since Brandon has been something of a mentor to me (and his Mistborn books are some of the best fantasy that I’ve read!), but I shared many of Charlie’s complaints with the book.

The biggest thing, however, was the way he fell into long, frequent info dumps about the world.  Every time, I felt that it stopped the action and jolted me out of the story, like reading a college textbook.  The world was okay, but the way he presented it just didn’t work for me.

That, and the way the characters acted.  When Siri got carted off near the beginning to be the wife of the God king, the fact that she hardly showed any fear or anxiety about have sex with the guy just threw me out.  She was just like “oh, well,” and was nervous about everything else EXCEPT for the sex part.  From then on, I had believability issues with her character.

Finally, let me just say that when I write my steampunk flower novel, I want to make one of the characters a Circassian janissary.  I just think it would be really cool to put a Circassian in the book, as either a good guy or a bad guy (or, more likely, a grey-area guy).  If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, check out the video below:

Dragging behind a bit

My writing slowed down significantly during the Writing and Illustratin for Young Readers conference a week ago, and it hasn’t really picked up at all since then.  For my seven day totals, I’ve only been averaging between 17k and 14k–that means, on average, I’m doing about half what I want to be doing.  Blah.

While I haven’t been writing a whole lot, however, I have been doing a lot of outlining.  It looks like I’m going to be throwing out a ton of scenes, putting other scenes in different chapters, and adding whole new scenes in places where I previously didn’t have any.  Yikes.

In other words, I’m in the process of completely reconceptualizing the structure of this novel–taking a few steps back and looking at the entire project as a whole.  It’s taking up a heck of a lot of time right now,  but hopefully it will help the rewriting process to be more successful.  After all, if I try to stumble through without a clear idea of what I want this story to be, it’s just going to be a waste of time.

But if I’m going to finish this draft before August 1st, I need to pick up the pace.  If this draft runs up to 150k as expected (and at the current rate, it could easily go over), I need to do just under 22k per week.  That means, if I do anything less than 3k per day over the next six weeks, I’m going to fall behind this deadline.

The deadline is entirely arbitrary and artificial, but still, I want to keep it.  Keeping deadlines is a writing skill I want to train myself to do, and I think it will help me out tremendously down the road.

So the goal this week is to pick up the pace again and get the seven day totals back up to 24k by next Sunday.  It’s going to be something of a psychological struggle to get the momentum up again, but it’s something I know I can do.  Inshallah.

In the meantime, I’ve been putting together some awesome ideas for a steampunk novel.  Things are starting to gel for my next big project, and I’m getting REALLY excited.  I still have an enormous amount of research to do before I can begin (like, tons of research), so I won’t get started just yet, but man!  The ideas in my head are hot, I can feel it!

I know I’m speaking in vagaries…but to make up for it, I’ll leave you with a link to this wicked awesome steampunk picture I found the other day. Seriously–how cool would it be to be this guy??


Steampunk Airship Pilot by ~homarusrex on deviantART

Dreaming up steampunkery

I had the coolest dream last night.

I dreamed that I was in some kind of a steampunk/regency universe–basically, everyone dressed up like the Victorian era and fought with fencing sabers.  I was contracted to go and fight the phantom of the opera, who for some reason was holed up in the JFSB (except, it wasn’t exactly the JFSB, just somewhat analogous). The phantom had a whole bunch of cronies and thugs, and I had to fight them in order to get to him.  Unfortunately, I lost, and his thugs disarmed me and took me prisoner.

Just then, my wife (future wife–I’m not married or engaged right now) came in to rescue me.  The dream panned out so that I was seeing it from her perspective (previously, it had been a sort of detached 3rd person).  She snuck up on the guy guarding the door and stabbed him in the back with a dagger.  Leaving him to die, she jumped into the JFSB where I was (you know the part underneath the big glass facade, three stories below the English department, where the spiral stairs are…except there were no spiral stairs in the dream, just some old dirty couches), and started this awesome swordfight.  She cut down a couple of guys, then attacked the guard holding me captive–and killed him by thrusting her sword through his throat.

It was pretty cool. 😛 Totally reminded me of Vin from Mistborn.  What a woman!

When I woke up from the dream, I wanted to go write some steampunk.  If/whenever I get around to writing a steampunk novel, I definitely want a strong female character who can do that kind of stuff.  Through the throat.  What a way to go!  Suffocate on your own blood while your opponent walks away, leaving you to die.  It’s bad enough getting stabbed in the stomach, but the throat–that takes style.  And improvisation.  Cool.

Yet another story idea

Ok, here is a cool one that came to me the other day.

One of the time traveling cliches is that of someone going back in time to kill off some infamous world leader in his/her infancy, thus changing the course of history and averting a major disaster (or causing an even bigger one). It’s a common what if scenario: what if someone went back in time and killed Hitler? (Red Alert) What if someone went back in time and supplied the Confederacy with AK-47s? (The Guns of the South)

Well, here’s my take on it: what if time traveling agents have ALWAYS been going back in time, trying to fix up problems like this? What if history is one long story of the screw ups of a bunch of secret agents trying to alter things, trying to get it right, trying to get to some kind of utopia?

Of course, by altering history, they alter their own futures, making it impossible to go back to the future from which they came. Which means that they would have to go forward, see how it worked out, then go back again to make another change, take out another horrible world leader, then go forward again, etc etc.

If that’s the case, perhaps our universe is actually one of the “rough drafts” that this agency has been working on. Perhaps our universe is so screwed up because the agency hasn’t yet made all of the changes they want to make…not in this timeline, anyway.

In order for this to work, the people of this agency would have to all travel together, since leaving someone behind before going back to make alterations would mean leaving that person behind in a timeline that could never be reached again. From this, two things follow: 1) the time travelers would have to have some kind of a really cool ship, on which they all live and travel, and 2) they would be completely autonomous from any kind of government or other institution limited to one particular timeline.

This raises a number of ethical questions. Is it wrong to go back and alter the course of history in this way? Do the people in the original timeline cease to exist, or do they continue to exist in a parallel universe? If you take the latter view, how does that alter the ethics of changing things? You’re not really screwing people over–they still exist, just in an invisible parallel universe. And you’re trying to make the world a better place, too. But, then again…you’re basically playing god with history, and that sounds pretty unethical.

My idea for incorporating this into a story is this: a regular guy from our time bumps into these time travelers and gets sucked into their little plot to build a utopia. He has to struggle with getting taken out of his world, never to return (or never to return to it quite the way it was). There could possibly be a love story of some kind, especially if these are steampunk time travelers (perhaps that would explain why the 20th century was more spectacularly screwed up than any other–the time travelers started in the 1800s and are more concerned about their era than after their era. But then, there are also divisions and disagreements among the time travelers, with some getting fed up and discouraged with the whole thing, others (possibly the leader) with megalomania, and others who are beginning to have doubts about the morality of their undertaking.

Pretty cool, neh? Now, back to doing homework… 😛