Andrew Seiple's Blog: Transmissions From the Teslaverse, page 12

Slight delay...

I wanted to wait until after the convention today to do an update. Expect one this weekend, or shortly thereafter.

End of the trail...

Finishing up some final work on the dime novel today, after tag-teaming it with the creator of Exiles.

No matter how good you get at self-publishing, you're never too good to work with a skilled editor. Nobody gets here alone, or finishes the journey alone.

Remember that, no matter how big you get.

Next stop for me on the Exiles train? Gencon! More news as that develops.

Yee-haw!

So I'm writing a dime novel! Sort of. It's actually the narrative for an adventure game booklet. Not quite a novella, but bigger than a short story.

A friend of mine, the head of Mindworm Games, is putting the final touches of his Western RPG action game together. It's a labor of love, and gritty goodness. Also a lot of swearing. Sweet Jesus, the vulgarity.

Westerns aren't my usual style, but he's hit me up for some freelancing and I'm honored to be a part of it. We're finalizing the details now, and I'm typing like a madman to get things done in a few weeks so that we have the maximum time and editing passes available. Fortunately, it's not a long project. Dime novels are short, yo.

If all goes to plan, then come August (And Gencon), my work will be out and published by someone other than me. That'll make me a published author, and it'll be my first published venture into the world of RPG's...

I'll be at Gencon, helping him launch his game. It's going to rock! My friend is the sort who puts 100% into every damn thing he does. I'm honored to be a part of this, and I'm honored that he came to me, for this part of the freelance work.

The Social Introvert

So I'm sitting here, taking stock of all my various media, and realizing that the modern day writer has much to manage.

I've got twitter, a facebook author page, this blog, and the boards I normally haunt, and a mailing list. About the only thing I don't have is a website, and well, that'll come eventually.

I look at the various boards and posts, of writers saying that you need the various social media networks to succeed, so I've got those. But, well... my focus is always going to be on the writing. I'll update as I can, but... it's definitely taking some adjustment. See, I'm a guy who struggles to answer the phone, and I have 4-5 different ways of connecting with readers.

And y'know what?

It's cool.

No, really, it's okay!

Honestly... I like writing. I like talking about writing, and not just my writing, but other people's writing too. I like talking about superheroes and dragons and random genres and sub-genres. Writing has only brought me joy. Reading has let me survive truly troubling times.

When I'm talking about books, my introvertedness cuts me a break, and I can let my inner geek shine through. And I DO!

So what I need to do, ultimately, is bring that attitude to this new medium.

That effort? It's going okay, so far.

I might not tweet every day, or hell, every week, but it's there if you want to tweet at me or ask me to follow you. I facebook a little more often, but not as much as I could. Still, it's there if you want to check out cool Dire art or see what events I'll be attending. And the mailing list is useful for sending out book announcements and free short stories, but aside from that I don't want to spam so I'm pretty quiet with it. And this blog? Well, this part's been easier than I expected. Blogging's fun!

So... what I'm saying is I'm a pretty quiet guy most days. But I'm still here, even when I'm silent. I'm still scratching away, working on the next Dire book, or one of my side projects or manuscripts.

And if you ever want to chat, well, the door's open! You know where to find me...

What's that? You're too shy? Well, that's okay. C'mere, sit down next to me, and crack open a good book. Let's be introverted together!

Second Time Around

It's easier the second time around.

I hear that every writer's different, and I believe it. So take the words below with a grain of salt.

So, writing the first novel? That was very hard. Three-to-four months of pushing myself for the first draft, then three more months of constant editing. Then another three months of waiting on the last publishing company I queried, but that came to nothing. (Though I did get some final editing in there, so it wasn't wasted time.)

The second time... well, it went smoothly. My confidence was up, from the warm reception on DIRE:BORN, and the fact that I knew I could do it. I'd done it before, hadn't I?

All told, it took 2 months to finish the first draft, a month and change to run it by editors and friends, and half-a-month waiting for the cover artist to finish. (Worth it, though. Halbrooks does good work. Sweet Jesus, look at that cover! LOOK AT IT!)

Editing was a big part of the shortcut. I edited on the fly, as comments from my readers came in. Stuff got done earlier, even if it made for a few more hours work in a shorter space of time.

So. Yeah, it was still a lot of work, all told... but it was easier. And there were points when I was writing the first draft where things would just CLICK, and then I'd find myself churning out five, ten, fifteen thousand words a weekend. Good words, too, mostly.

So for those of you who are struggling? Who are digging into your first draft, and screaming with the pain of it all... relax.

If you're at all like me, the first time's the hardest. It's easier the second time around.

Dire:Seed is out!

After much work, many late nights, and an A++ performance by my cover artist, the second book of Dire's saga is done and available in the Amazon store!

Next up: Formatting the print copy, and getting that rolling. Createspace, here I come!

In Memorium, Good Knight

Good lord, has it been a year already?

No, wait, over a year. Crap, I let the day go by without remarking on it. I blame being busy, but really, there's no excuse.

So. One year ago, one of my favorite authors died. I'm talking of course, about Sir Terry Pratchett.

Oh, he'd been having troubles for years. A brilliant mind, struggling with early-onset alzheimer's. Hellish, that. Nothing I'd wish on anyone.

I'd just finished writing DIRE:BORN when I heard the news. It... for some absurd reason I was feeling guilty.

I'd had this fantasy, you know? That I would write something good enough that my favorite authors would read it and feel the same way about me that I feel about them. That I'd someday get to shake their hand as a peer, instead of a fan. And I'd JUST finished writing, when off he went. One dream, gone forever. Couldn't help but feel I'd caused it in a roundabout way, through some warped curse or sympathetic resonance. Or just tempting the universe to squelch my dream, as it has so many before.

It hurts more with Terry because I grew up with his work. I found and devoured "The Colour of Magic" in a used bookstore back when I was ten, and shortly thereafter, the library started stocking his Discworld books. And then he'd go and put out another one each year, give or take... Good reads, all of them. Not all perfect, mind, but a mediocre Pratchett book was equal to an awesome book from anyone else.

And beyond the amusement value, there was more to them. Eventually I learned to see the fire beneath the words. He wasn't just writing funny fantasy. He was writing wry observations on the human condition, philosophy, social change, and more. At the core of it, he was writing a reminder that we all are better than we know, that we can be better than we are if we just keep trying to do good things.

Watching him fall to the disease had been heartbreaking to me, and I was just a fan. I can't even imagine what it was for his family and close friends... but I could tell by his writing, that it was bad. Very bad. As time went on and the disease got worse, his books got painful to read. Oh, they still had the fire, but the words layered over them didn't have the same snap. They weren't as sharp. And it wasn't consistent, every now and then he'd get a surge of his old skill back, and I'd get a burst of hope. But it never lasted.

And it occured to me, as I read, that what I was seeing when I read each of these more recent books, was a raw, rough draft. These were his books without the months of careful refining and editing that he put into each. These were him, regardless of how rough they were. These were HIM, and he was struggling to get them out there before he passed on.

Give me a minute. Tearing up here.

Thank you. I shouldn't be tearing up. I am. To the very end, he fought to get the words past the disease that stole his very mind from him. To the very end, he found the words worth saying, and gave them to us, regardless of what it cost him.

Say this, for Terry, and say it with humility for the incredible blazing star of an author that we were fortunate to witness in our lifetimes... Say not that he went down fighting. Say that he went down writing. And we are better people for it.

Rest well, good knight.

It's on us, all of us who loved your work and learned from it to carry the torch from here, and if we do a tenth as well as you did, I'll count it a victory.

Red and Blue, Black and Gold

Did you know that there are some authors and companies out there that make superhero roleplaying games?

I'm a fan of Mutants and Masterminds myself, but a few weeks ago I picked up one called "Wild Talents" when it turned up on sale in my local game store. It was written by Dennis Detwiller, Kenneth Hite, Shane Ivy, and Greg Stolze. It's kind of an expanded idea of their original "Godlike" game. Most of the book's dedicated to the rules and setting of course, typical RPG fare... but part of it is an amazing chapter on superhero worldbuilding.

They introduce four concepts that act as good measurements of how far from our own universe a superhero universe has strayed.

Red is how much our main timeline matches another timeline. In a Red 1 world, the Soviet Union fell, World War II ended in the 40s, the US lost Vietnam, we don't have any moonbases circa 2016, and for the most part, history's untouched despite the introduction of superpowers. In a Red 2 world, one or two major events were different as a result of powers. In a Red 5 world, the timeline's totally different, to the point that practically no major events past the introduction of powers are the same.

Blue is a measure of the fantastic... It's how much weirdness is possible for the setting. In a Blue 1 world, there is no such thing as magic, humanity is alone in the Universe, radiation is usually bad, and there are no other dimensions. There are superpowers, but that's all. In a Blue 2 world, there's typically one fantastic thing besides superpowers, and it's either hidden or muted. In a Blue 5 world, Jetpack gorillas can live on the moon so long as they fight off the Atlantean nazis who park their aetherpanzers up there on weekends.

Black is a measure of morality, and overall darkness. Black 1 worlds are gritty, shades of grey where only we judge ourselves, there is no karma, and no one's all good or bad. Nothing's entirely good or evil. In a Black 2 world, some things are clearly good and some are clearly bad, but most of it's still on us to judge. In a Black 5 world there is good and there is evil, and heroes don't do drugs stay in school kids!

Gold determines the capability of a protagonist or antagonist to seriously change the setting. In a Gold 1 setting it doesn't matter that Superman can help with space exploration or that Reed Richards can cure cancer, because they don't. In a Gold 2 setting, there's some limited help, a few tech advancements or societal changes but they're fairly minor and gradual. In a Gold 5 setting we all live in the sky thanks to Awesomeman's levitation stones, and we have flying cars! Or we all live in the blasted remnants because Ragequit burned the world, and now we have to Mad Max it up for scavenged granola bars and gasoline.

This is a seriously useful and well-thought-out scale.

It would have been useful to have it around when I was designing the Teslaverse, because it would have saved me a lot of time, helped me articulate things more clearly. But hey, I can do that now.


RED: I'd put the Teslaverse at Red 3. Most of written history matches up with our own timeline, up until World War I. But the further you go, the more drift happens. Some major events are altered or resolve differently, even if you can still recognize Earth's history if you squint and turn your head a little. Much of the Teslaverse looks like Red 2 at first glance... but then secrets are revealed, and the true disparity of the setting is brought into relief.

If you dropped a person from our world into most nations of the Teslaverse, and took away their television and internet, they wouldn't notice for a day or so, probably. But eventually they'd start wondering why the architecture was different and what all those antennae and pylons on the buildings were about.

BLUE: Blue 3, with no regrets. Magic's a thing, even if it's mostly hidden. Various types of radiation can make mutants instead of cancer, and there ARE jetpack gorillas, but they certainly don't live on the moon, thank you very much. They're doing very well in their superscience-warded plateau in the Congo, thank you very much. It's all due to an agreement with the Atlanteans, who dwell deep within the waves and are said to worship unspeakable elder gods... so yeah. Lots of weirdness, but it's not shoved in people's faces all the time, and for the most part society toodles along, trying to ignore the fact that weird stuff is out there and there's not much the average human can do about it.

Drop an average human from our world into the Teslaverse and they'd think they were having a hallucinogenic episode the first time a naiad manifests in the office water cooler and demands wine sacrifices. Or as the MRB calls it, a code 7731.

BLACK: Black 3, with shades of 2 mostly because Dire. The Teslaverse is a world where killing is a horrible thing to do, and you should only do it in self-defense. Karma always has a way of coming back on people, and good folks are generally more successful and rewarded, while bad folks eventually suffer. There are exceptions... Doctor Dire seems to get away with more malice, but that's usually due to the fact it's done for righteous reasons and never lightly. She STILL has horrible luck, and has to work hard for every pyrrhic victory she wrests from the jaws of cruel fate.

Drop an average human from our world into the Teslaverse, and they'd eventually find themselves tested or pulled into being a good or bad person. It's possible to stay neutral and just be an average sort, but it takes work and dedication and either cowardice or prudence depending upon your viewpoint.

GOLD: Gold 2. Tesla changed the world, but he didn't complete what he started... his technology replaced our power grid, our internet, our electronics, and advanced the general tech level of the world by a decade or two. But other areas are much the same. Superscience is useful but, well... stability, safety, cost, functionality... pick two. Then that goes down to one, when villains figure out how to mess it up. Magic is NOT safe, even for skilled practitioners, so you certainly don't want it in the hands of the mainstream populace. And sure, some supervillains could transmute continents into gold... but the banking conspiracies would pick up a phone and have them dead within minutes if they did.

It IS possible to change the world, but there are so many counterbalances and both heroes and villains who like it as it is, that you have to overcome a ton of challenges before you get anywhere close to making such changes lasting.

Drop an average human being from our world into the Teslaverse, and... well. Any human can change the world, really, given luck and skill.

Funny how often we forget that. Fortunately, we have our stories to remind us.

And on that note, I'll sign off. Peace, out!

Splitting Genres

It's a tough call.

Looking at the successful independent writers out there, and their paths to success, most of them achieved that by working hard in one genre and establishing a base there.

Me, I've got a ton of ideas for several different genres. I'm committed to three Dire books before I stray, but after those are done I'm eyeing a MG fantasy trilogy. Something for younger readers, with cute dragons a'plenty and lots of good versus bad.

And that's not even getting into the RPG freelancing I'm doing, which is all Western short stories and microfiction.

Running the numbers... I'd be better off faster if I stuck to superheroes.

So.

How do I reconcile this?

Well, maybe I don't have to. The big advantage of an indy writer is that we're not limited by the typical back-and-forth and delays that you find in trade publishing. We have more control over the process, and spend much less time waiting on gatekeepers.

Those MG dragon books I want to write? They should clock in at 60K words each, or thereabouts, barring a burst of inspiration. That's a month, month-and-a-half of work at most for me. Add in a few weeks for editing, art, and various collaboration from my dream team, and you're looking at a 2-3 month investment per book.

So it won't distract me for long, and I'll be back to superheroes in half a year or so. Or some other project that strikes my fancy.

Sure, I might delay the rise of my brand a bit, but... well, I'm digging into this career for two reasons.

1. It's fun as hell.

2. I get to choose what I do.

I might delay things by a year or two, but in the long run I know I'll still get there. And if I forbade myself experimentation, well... Rule #1 would be broken pretty darn quick.

So buckle up friends! Things are gonna get interesting here in half a year or so, if I keep to schedule...

Suz Korb's project...

Hello folks! Today's post is a guest post, courtesy of Suz Korb. She's writing in real-time, and... well, I'll let her explain it.

She's a gracious host and a good romance writer. Her own words follow;

"I’m doing something totally incredible. I’m going to blog the first draft of my newest novel as I write it! This is my new project as a way of getting me to write more every day. Follow my blog http://suzkorb15.blogspot.com for daily chapters of my current work in progress.

This will be fiction at its most raw. Pure story. This is adventure as it unfolds in my mind, the most creative way possible for a writer to express one’s self. I’m going to have fun with this and you can join me for the journey, wherever it may take us!"