Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 196

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Subgenre Smash-And-Grab

Last week’s challenge: Random Song Title.

First, a bit of housekeeping — I still gotta go through the rest of the 300+ entries on “horror in three sentences” contest. So many good options there it’s actually hurting me internally to try to choose. Goal is to have the winners chosen by the end of the weekend!

Now, onto the challenge.

This week, I wrote a thing about how I fucking love me some genre fiction.

So, you know, it seems appropriate that we enter into this next flash fiction challenge by enacting my favorite challenge: the subgenre mash-up.

Gander upon the list of 20 subgenres below. Roll a d20 or fiddle with your favorite random number generator and choose two subgenres.

From there, write ~1000 word short story that mashes up both.

Post at your online space. Link back here so we can read!

Due by next Friday, November 1st. Noon EST.

Given that Halloween is coming up, you’ll note more of these are horror than usual.

To the subgenremobile!

Slasher Horror
Space Opera
Lovecraftian
Erotic Fantasy
Post-Apocalyptic Horror
Mythology
Haunted House
Fairy Tale
Occult Horror
Alien Invasion
Vampires
Hardboiled
Psychological Horror
Technothriller
Southern Gothic
Dieselpunk
Zombies
Superhero
Bizarro
Artificial Intelligence

 

Your Book Is Not Pepper Spray That You Must Fountain Into My Eyes

Dear People Who Have Written Books:

I don’t want to be advertised to.

Or, put differently: I don’t want to be strapped down while you advertise all over me in some acrid, splashy golden shower version of “marketing.”

I awake daily now to find that someone has posted a photo of their book to Facebook and tagged me in the photo. Not because I had anything to do with the book. Not because I even know this person, but just because they want me to see it. I am frequently tagged with other writers as if to say, “Hey, guys, look! I wrote a book!” And the book is frequently some dubiously-covered author-published book which may be awesome, or may be a total cube of wombat poop.

(Yes, wombats poop in cubes. THE MORE YOU KNOW.)

Listen, I get it. I understand. It’s hard out there for a penmonkey. You gotta scrap and struggle and kick and scrape to get noticed, lest your book — released with a publisher or released on your own — land softly and unseen, as if it had never been written at all. And you think, I have these social media tools available to me, so I must use them to their fullest.

I’m sympathetic. As I noted yesterday, I’m an inky-fingered dude trying to make it, too.

The problem is, the social media tools you’re using?

They’re hammers. And I don’t want you to hit me with a fucking hammer.

Now, I get it, someone out there will say that familiar refrain of first world problems, and yes, this is very much a first world problem — and is in fact a small subsection of the first world problem, an artist’s first world problem. People are starving and economies are stumbling drunkenly through gauntlets of paddling politicians and people keep writing open letters to Miley Cyrus, I know. Just the same, niche as it may be, it’s a problem, and here’s why:

Your little advertisement isn’t the only one I’m getting today.

I’ll get more of the same on Facebook throughout the day.

Someone will “invite me” to their book launch on FB.

Or they’ll “invite me” to the same on Google-Plus (sometimes both).

And inevitably someone will DM me on Twitter about his book.

Or spam me on Twitter along with 1000 other writers HEY @CHUCKWENDIG HAVE YOU SEEN THIS COOL SPACE OPERA BOOK CALLED STARWRATH OF THE STARWRAITH WOW I TOTALLY DIDN’T WRITE IT WINK WINK.

Or they’ll email me at one or two or even three of my email addresses.

(All from people I don’t even know.)

So, your one little piece of advertising detritus gloms onto all the other rancid bits.

And by the end of the day I have a vertiable fatberg of your spammy spamness clogging up my social media feeds and, worse, filling my brain with rage.

Admittedly, this practice seems to come up more often with author-publishers than it does with traditionally-published authors, but the trad-pubbers do the same shit, too, sometimes. And worse is when actual publishers or publicists choose to try this same dubious bullshit which is just, ugh. (A new favorite is writing me as if I’d be blessed by some divine librarian’s hand to review a book or host a guest blog by an author or write a guest blog for an author — no free book, no it’s not a favor, it’s just my good fortune to be receiving this request.)

To reiterate: I get it. I do!

This realm of social media is relatively new and we’re all just trying to find a way to peddle our creative wares and, you know, not starve to death. I genuinely understand that.

The trick is, stop being a sentient spam-bot.

Start being a cool author person.

I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t talk about your book. You can! And should!

You have an audience and whether it’s 300 or 300,000, and presumably the people in that audience follow you with some understanding and expectation that you talk about your work and occasionally — not always, certainly not every fifteen minutes – drop a link or ask them to buy or review a book. I do it. Other authors far more impressive than I do it. There you’re talking to the audience that has gathered around your soapbox. Instead of, say, running out into a city park and bludgeoning random passersby with your book.

Your book is not a fist, a hammer, a Taser, a stream of hot urine.

You do not make me want to read your book by clumsily thumping me about the head and neck with it. FUMP FUMP FUMP READ IT IT’S A BOOK LOOK AT IT NO SERIOUSLY LOOK IT HAS WORDS YOU LIKE WORDS FUMP FUMP FUMP. Ow! No. Not cool, author-person. Not cool at all.

Instead:

Be cool.

Write more books.

Write fewer invasive advertisements.

Thank you, and good night. Er, good morning.

WHATEVER SHUT UP I STILL HAVE JET LAG

Ten Questions About Dying Is My Business, By Nicholas Kaufmann

I love hearing about authors and books that never before pinged my RADAR, and Nick Kaufmann is one of them: I got an earlier copy of Dying Is My Business a few weeks before, and turning the first page found me grabbed immediately by the story, my treachea firmly gripped. So, here’s Nick to answer some questions about that very book…

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

I’m a forty-something author from Brooklyn, NY with a background in the book business. I was Publicity Manager for a small literary press, a pitchman for a widely respected PR firm specializing in TV and radio author appearances, a bookstore clerk, an independent bookstore owner, a manager for Barnes & Noble, and a development associate for a top literary and film agent. I was also manager of a small indie video store for a time. I’ve been nominated for a few literary awards: the Bram Stoker Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the International Thriller Writers Award. I haven’t won any, though. Clearly I’m a charlatan.

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:

DYING IS MY BUSINESS is a hardboiled urban fantasy-noir about a thief for a Brooklyn crime syndicate who can’t stay dead. Also, monsters.

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?

This novel is such a burrito of pop culture influences that it’s hard for me to pinpoint just one. Basically, I knew I wanted to write a chase novel set in New York City. I also knew I wanted the impetus to be something different from the usual thriller MacGuffin of a stolen thumb drive or microchip. I’ve always loved supernatural stories, so I went in that direction instead. Now the MacGuffin is a ancient, mysterious box that our hero, Trent, must retrieve and protect without knowing what’s inside. Of course, what’s inside turns out to be something awful that puts all of New York City in jeopardy.

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN?

I think I bring a few things to the table. First and foremost is my sense of humor. DYING IS MY BUSINESS is a dark and gritty novel at heart, but it’s also got its fair share of humor. There’s a lot of snark. But there’s joy, too. There are so many stories out there that don’t have any joy in them. I wanted to change that and lighten the darkness of this story with actual moments of joy. Another thing I bring along is a background in horror rather than fantasy. Most of my published work has been in the horror genre. So I called on that to instill the world in this novel with a certain darkness, a certain creepiness. Here, magic is dark and dangerous and has the potential to drive you insane. It can also mutate you physically into something monstrous. Many of the supernatural entities Trent encounters are truly alien and unknowable. This isn’t the kind of urban fantasy where magicians drive tour buses in their off hours (I love you, Egg Shen!). This is an urban fantasy where magicians risk madness or worse whenever they cast a spell.

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING DYING IS MY BUSINESS?

I spent two long, grueling years writing and rewriting and rewriting again until I was satisfied with the novel. The work was hard, no doubt about it. Sometimes I felt like I was going nuts. But the hardest thing of all was not knowing if the work would pay off. I didn’t have an agent at the time. I certainly didn’t have a publisher waiting for me. The novel was written on spec, with no guarantee that I wasn’t wasting two years of my life where I could have been earning money instead with a “normal” job. Luckily, I have a very patient and gainfully employed wife who refused to let me quit. Believe me, I know how lucky I am. Not every writer has that luxury. But the gamble paid off, thank goodness. The novel landed me a great agent, and he, in turn, got me a deal with a great publisher.

 WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING DYING IS MY BUSINESS?

I learned some hefty lessons about plotting. I love great characters and I love emotional arcs, but I’ve always been a plot-heavy writer. So I thought writing a chase novel would be a breeze. Cue the loud buzzer and the giant red X from Family Feud. Turned out I had a lot to learn about plot and pacing. My initial draft was crazy front-loaded with exposition. I guess I thought I needed to get it all out of the way so I could get on with the action. My mistake. I eventually learned through trial and error that doling out information over time made it far more readable. It also made the mystery at the heart of the novel that much more compelling. Another thing I learned was how important choosing the right POV is. At first, the novel was written in third person, but it kept fighting me. I could only progress in fits and starts. It was only after I switched to first person that the chain caught and the novel took off.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT DYING IS MY BUSINESS?

I genuinely love the world I created for this novel. Dark magic, monsters lurking under the streets or around alley corners, even a theological hierarchy of sorts with entities like the Guardians and the Ancients. On top of that, I got to base it all in my hometown of New York City! Everyone who lives here has a love/hate relationship with the city. I’m no exception. I got to show my love for the city through the eyes of my characters, but also show my frustration with it by, well, destroying parts of it.

 WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

I would trust myself more. I think a lot of what made this novel such a long journey (and by “long journey” I mean “stultifying shit show”) to write was that I wasn’t trusting my instincts as a storyteller. I second-guessed myself a lot. I wondered whether certain choices would limit my readership. At times I over-explained things because I didn’t trust the reader to get it. I see now how all of that existed only to trip me up. They were distractions at best, and pitfalls at worst. Once I trusted myself, things went a lot better.

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:

I think my favorite paragraph may be the opening lines of the novel. Which is really two paragraphs. I’m totally cheating.

“It’s not as easy as it looks to come back from the dead.

It’s a shock to the system, even more than dying is. The first new breath burns like fire. The first new heartbeat is like a sharp, urgent pain. Emerging from the darkness like that, the sudden light is blinding, confusing. Coming back from the dead feels less like a miracle than like waking up with the world’s most debilitating hangover.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?

The sequel, currently titled DIE AND STAY DEAD, is set to come out from St. Martin’s in the fall of 2014. I also have a story coming out later this month in PS Publishing’s new anthology, DARK FUSIONS, which is edited by New York Times bestselling author Lois Gresh. In the near future, I plan to start work on the third book, tentatively titled ONLY THE DEAD SLEEP, as well as another urban fantasy that’s completely unrelated.

Nicholas Kaufmann: Website / Twitter

Dying Is My Business: Amazon / B&N / Indiebound / Powells

 

Constructing My Parachute On The Way Down

It has begun.

What has begun?

The period of time whereupon my wife has left her job and will be a stay-at-home mother to our darling little wolverine tornado, B-Dub, and where I am the sole provider for the family.

This is awesome.

I do not say that snarkily. I say that with great oomphing trumpets. My chest is puffed out. My victorious plumage is on colorful display. My cloaca is flush with turgid triumph.

This is awesome.

It is awesome in the colloquial sense, as in, “This is great.”

It is also awesome in the proper sense of the word: awesome like a tsunami, like one’s imagined God, like a meteor made of flaming lions and electric guitars.

And in that proper sense, it is also terrifying.

Writing’s been good to me. But it’s not a job with a steady paycheck. It’s not universally considered to be a reliable, easy career. Again: it’s been good to me. I’ve little cause to worry at this stage in the game. But writers, as the saying goes, must be sharks. We gotta swim forward –

Or we drown.

As such, this is where I turn to you and I ask for your help.

I’m not looking for charity. We’re financially comfortable — “comfortable” in the sense we can pay all our bills without complaint, but also “comfortable” in the sense that one small tragedy could cut our legs out from under us — but really, we’re solid. Just the same, I need to keep doing this to survive, and keeping on keeping as a writer-type means having an audience there willing to catch me when I, well, make jumps like this one.

And catching me means a couple different things.

It means buying my books, for one. I just put up a bundle yesterday where you can get all my six author-published writing books for a mere ten bucks until the end of November.

Maybe you’d dig a woman who can see how you’re going to die just by touching them.

Or maybe you got a hankering for a corn-swept dystopian future full of adventure and turmoil and teenage tragedy.

Could be you’d like to read a story about a dude punching his way through the Secret Hell beneath the streets of Manhattan in search of his traitorous daughter.

Might be instead that you’d like to read about a teen girl going up against the institutionalized bullies of her town and trying to take down a dog-fighting ring.

Plus, you know, all those other writing books.

Point is: hey, options.

Now, I recognize that not everybody is flush with the kind of disposable cash that makes procuring entertainment easy or palatable, and that’s okay, too. In that case, I’d simply appreciate it if you told some folks about my books. Spread the word, as it were. Maybe write a review if you’ve read something of mine in the past. Anything to lubricate that whole “word-of-mouth” thing a little bit.

All this goes to helping keep me solvent as a writer. It helps pay bills and put food in the mouth of the toddler. And it helps keep this website around — as the site has grown, its hosting bills have grown with it, and these days it costs a pretty penny to keep her running.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for helping me stitch together the parachute as I plummet.

*shrieks in victory as I fall through someone’s barn*

The NaNoWriMo Bundle: For Sale Now, Limited Time

Six books.

250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING.

500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER.

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER.

500 WAYS TO TELL A BETTER STORY.

CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY.

REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY.

All available in one bundle.

Usual cost: ~$18.00.

Available until the end of November as a NaNoWriMo special for: $10.00.

(All of these are PDF except for 500 Ways to Tell a Better Story, which is PDF, Kindle, and ePub, all wrapped up in a delicious zip file. If you want the books through Amazon or B&N, they are available at each, though not in “bundled” format.)

Buy now direct from this site (click the image above or the direct link below), and you’ll get a *.txt file with a download link within it. Note that Payhip is an e-book delivery service that uses Paypal to collect and distribute funds.

(If you have any issues with the download, please email me at terribleminds [at] gmail [dot] com in order to get it resolved. Thanks!)

Direct link to bundle:  https://payhip.com/b/NsWQ

25 Reasons I Fucking Love Genre Fiction

What follows below is the presentation speech I gave at this year’s GenreCon in Brisbane, Australia. I had originally thought to do a 25 list devoted to what I see as problems in genre fiction from the authorial perspective — but I was taken by the sheer love of All Things Genre at the conference and decided instead to be a fountain, not a drain, and talk about all the things that genre fiction does well.

It seemed to go over well in the room — then again, the room featured alcohol, so I probably could’ve slurred my way through a Neil Diamond song and done all right. Just the same, here’s the list of 25 — edited just slightly in places to make it more blog-palatable.

* * *

So, here’s the thing — I got to Australia on Thursday after 24 total hours of travel, including one 16-hour direct flight from Dallas to Brisbane — and then, ignoring every caveat and whispered warning I got drunk last night and ended up doing karaoke with a cabal of you fine upstanding citizens. And yet, I’m feeling pretty good? I think maybe my hangover and my jet lag had a fight this morning inside my soul and obliterated one another? Whatever.

Just the same, it’s worth mentioning that at any point I could fall asleep right here during my speech and if I do, I’ll politely ask that you just quietly go on with your banquet and leave me be. It’s also possible that I’m so mentally broken right now that I’m up in my room giving this speech to an audience of half-eaten biscuits and crumpled tissues.

I should also make note that this speech will contain words that are considered by many to be quite vulgar — so, if that bothers you, please be advised that the safe word is KOOKABURRA.

Now — I’m told that many folks were hoping I’d do a list of 25 things as I do quite frequently at my blog, terribleminds — but I’ll have you know I won’t be pinned down by your fascist expectations of me OKAY THANK YOU.

Now! I’ve prepared for you this evening a very special list of…

Ahem, 25 things…

SHUT UP QUIT LOOKING AT ME.

So now I give you:

25 REASONS I FUCKING LOVE GENRE FICTION

(Which is not the same thing as 25 REASONS I LOVE FUCKING GENRE FICTION, as that paints a rather unsavory picture.)

1. VAMPIRES

Mean vampires! Sweet vampires! Surly vampires! Vampires who glitter. Vampires who only glitter when they’ve killed and eaten a stripper. Romancey vampires. Vampires that look like Willem Dafoe on chemotherapy. Vampires who hate werewolves. Vampires who fuck werewolves. Vampires who hatefuck werewolves! Any flavor of vampire you want: genre fiction can accommodate.

2. ROBOTS

Do I even need to say more than just “robots?” WELL WHO CARES ‘CAUSE I’M GONNA. Robots that look like people! Robots that love people. Robots that want to eradicate the fleshy meat-sacks called “people.” Robots that are artificially intelligent! Hive-mind robots! Robots trained to kill. Robots that empty litter boxes. Sad robots. Happy robots. Space robots. Domo arigato, Mister Roboto.

3. SEX

Sexy sex! Unsexy sex. Awkward sex. Weird sex. Kinky sex! Bondage. Spanking. Riding crops. Kissy kissy. Touchie touchie. Turgid and tumescent! Okay, maybe not so much that last one. Point is: genre isn’t afraid of love! Of romance! Of all the sex that comes with it!

4. ALL OF THE ABOVE, AND THEN SOME

What I’m trying to say is, with genre, you can have it all. Robots making sweet love to vampires? Done and done! And it doesn’t have to stop there. Ladle in a couple unicorns, a spaceship or three, a handful of Greek Gods, a crime scene photographer, a serial killer, a dominatrix, a steampunk wombat, AND BY GOLLY YOU’VE GOT YOURSELF A STORY.

5. GO ANYWHERE, DO ANYTHING

Genre fiction takes us to places and lets us experience things that are built out of — to borrow a phrase from Willy Wonka — “pure imagination.” We can ride on the backs of dragons, solve a squicky homicide with a grumpy detective, navigate the moaning, shambling corpse-stench apocalypse of zombies, partake in the pleasures of a lunar brothel (be sure to get checked for MOON SYPHILIS because for reals that’s a bad one). Genre fiction ensures that no realm or time period is closed to us.

6. IT TAKES US AWAY FROM OUR ORDINARY LIVES

Genre fiction lets us buy the ticket and take a ride away from our own lives. Hey, listen, sometimes? Life will punch you right in the Chicken Twisties — it’ll kick you square in the Tim-Tams. See? Local references, Australia! Now I am one of you! Ahem. What was I saying? Ah, yes. Jobs and laundry and paying bills and commuting to work and all the mundane rigors of an average life can be mitigated by opening the magical mystery box that is a book of genre fiction.

7. WHAT I MEAN IS, IT AIN’T LITERARY FICTION

Oh, I’m not knocking literary fiction — stories across the whole range of human experience have value. But sometimes you want to read fewer books about intellectual ennui and MORE books about SEXY STEAMPUNK WOMBATS.

8. BUT IT CAN DAMN SURE BE AS LITERARY AS WE WANT IT TO BE

Uh, hello, China Mieville, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Connie Willis? Genre fiction can bring the literary cred. Our work can resonate with powerful themes, with lyricism and rhythm, with complex characters, and have just as much Narcissistic navel-gazing as those other guys, goddamnit.

9. THE TRUTH ABOUT LITERARY FICTION AND GENRE FICTION

Oh, hey, dirty publishing secret: that literary book that won all the awards? Yeah, it probably didn’t sell that many copies, and was paid for on the backs of all the genre releases that came before it. That’s right — literary fiction is subsidized by the strong sales of, drum roll please, genre releases. BOOM. I think this is where I’m supposed to drop the mic, but I don’t actually have a mic, because this is a blog post translating a speech where I did have a mic, but it was totally attached to the podium. Making this all very awkward.

10. GENRE CAN BE THE OPPOSITE OF ESCAPIST, TOO

We think that genre is taking us away — to far-flung castles and distant nebulae — but often it’s really taking us home. These books of great imagination are the elaborate shadows cast on the walls by the lives and the people and the things we already know.

11. BECAUSE GENRE FICTION OFFERS FANTASTIC LIES THAT SPEAK COMMON TRUTHS

All fiction is of course a lie — but genre fiction turns up the volume on those lies all the way to 11. But those lies are themselves a lie — the fiction itself a fiction, because all these crazy things we’re making up are here to deliver ideas and arguments and themes that speak to real things. The troubles of galactic colonists are really our troubles. The love triangles of star-crossed characters really speak to our own fears and desires about love. Genre traps the real inside the unreal, like a mosquito trapped in beautiful amber, or like a unicorn inside of a piano crate that I will sell to poachers for its delicious unicorn meat to feed my family DON’T JUDGE ME MY TODDLER NEEDS DIAPERS AND DADDY NEEDS WHISKEY.

12. GENRE FICTION CAN SAY THINGS ABOUT OUR WORLD

The Hunger Games is really telling us about what war does to children. Some say that Dune shows us an allegory about the Middle East. My own book, Under the Empyrean Sky, delivers an adventure story in a dystopian cornpunk future ravaged by bloodthirsty corn, climate change, and rampant wealth disparity — oh, what you didn’t think I wasn’t going to plug my own books, did you? Pssh. Whatever. I blackened my shame sensors with the heel of a boot a long time ago (as I think many writers have). So get used to it.

13. GENRE FICTION CAN SAY THINGS ABOUT US

Zombie apocalypse stories present a cynical view of man as his own worst enemy; stories of sex and romance telegraph our secretmost desires and fantasies; crime fiction often shines a light into the darkest corners of our own souls. Genre fiction is a circus funhouse mirror — we look and we see the warped vision of vengeful angels and roguish pirates, of cyborg brides and seductive steampunk wombats — but what we’re really seeing is ourselves looking back, clad as cosplayers and costumers wearing outfits that do not hide who we are but rather, accentuate and reveal. (The night of this speech, by the way, I masqueraded as someone who was not a writer — meaning, I wore pants.)

14. SUBVERSIVE SOCIAL POWER

Do not neglect to embrace the subversive social power of genre fiction — books of various genres can carry powerful messages about women, about people of color, about the unfortunate supremacy of heteronormative white dudes living on Heteronormative White Dude Mountain. I might suggest that as a cultural object, some genre works are best when they take the form of a big-ass hammer to destroy those walls and barriers that hold us back as human beings.

15. GENRE CAN HELP CHANGE THE WORLD

Lev Grossman calls genre fiction “disruptive technology” — and that makes sense. I mean, jeez. Scientists actually read science-fiction! Here’s a brief story — my writing partner and I had a short film called PANDEMIC out at Sundance in 2011, and we crafted around that a rather large transmedia experience that simulated this supernatural pandemic day by day throughout the festival. And we had scientists from around the world make use of the data that came out of that experience in order to help show how pandemics — real ones, not ones with monsters running around — spread.

16. BECAUSE GENRE CAN HELP CHANGE US

I feel changed every time I read a great genre novel. I feel challenged and energized like I’ve just had a hard hit of creative and intellectual caffeine — genre fiction forces us to take a long look at some really big ideas, man: love and sex, the past and the future, life and death, something-something steampunk wombats. Man, you guys, can we just talk about how adorable wombats are? Like, for real? As an American, I assume all Australians just have wombats hanging around their houses and I am so angry they won’t let me have one.

17. BECAUSE GENRE FICTION MADE ME WANT TO BE A WRITER

I remember reading the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander while sitting on the beach and being transported away from the sand and the sea to this fantastical place and I was so moved by moments within those mythic stories that I have since wanted to be a writer — a fierce need only increased by the great authors I read and love: Robin Hobb, Robert McCammon, Joe Lansdale, Bradley Denton — and since then I’ve been rejecting the beach and the sea and the sand and the sun to hide in my penmonkey cave ever since. (Which probably explains why we’re I’m butt-white and pasty. But hey, I got color in Australia! The kind of color where my forehead looked like a boiled lobster and has been shedding its flesh for the last two days. CURSE YOU OZZIE DAYSTAR. This is why I stay inside and read books and stuff.)

18. BECAUSE GENRE FICTION HAS TAUGHT ME THINGS

Every time I read or write a book I learn so many new things! I learn new words and new ideas. I learn about the insidiousness of corn. I learn about the Sandhogs of Manhattan and how these unsung union men keep the whole of the city running by working in the labyrinths beneath the city. I learn about death and dinosaurs and guns and girl-gangs. Fuck write-what-you-know – genre fiction proves we can always know more.

19. BECAUSE THERE EXIST RULES FOR WHEN YOU NEED ‘EM…

Genre has conventions. Rules. Tropes! To keep our plots and characters straight. To weave our stories into shared tapestries. But…

20. THOSE RULES CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF WHEN THEY GET IN THE WAY

Hey, don’t like those rules? We can toss ‘em out in the motherfucking cold. We write the rules: never forget that.

21. ALL THE LITTLE TINY ITTY BITTY BABY SUBGENRES

So many adorable little subgenres! Dystopian science-fiction! Time-travel romance! Zombie apocalypse! Steampunk! Dieselpunk! Cyberpunk! Cipherpunk! Bugpunk! Cornpunk! Punkpunk! BDSM New Adult Vampire Psychological Apocalyptic Space Opera Eroticapunk! They’re like Pokemon: I want to collect them all and trade them with my friends.

22. SO EASY TO READ BEYOND YOUR COMFORT ZONE

As writers, we don’t want to get trapped in that human centipede of genre regurgitation — where we continue to ingest and crap out the same stories again and again, gulping down throatfuls of the same genres by the same authors. Genre fiction is best when it’s a series of rabbit holes we keep falling down — from fantasy to dark fantasy to paranormal romance to horror, and on and on, across books and authors and into those little subgenres I was just talking about — a veritable buffet table of influences and ideas. (It occurs to me now that referencing human centipede crap-guzzling and then ending with buffet table does not make for appetizing idea-making, but it’s too late now why didn’t anyone stop me?)

23. GENRE DOESN’T OWN US; WE OWN GENRE

For some authors, genre is a brand the way that the flesh-charred marking on a cow’s hide is a brand — it’s a symbol of ownership, thought to keep the herd mooing in their bovine enclosures. But genre is no mere marketing category. Not to us. Genre is possibility — the chance to invent and explore, the opportunity to imagine and destroy. Genre isn’t our brand — our voice is our brand. Our ideas and our arguments are our brand. Stephen King isn’t a horror writer. He’s fucking Stephen King! J.K. Rowling isn’t a writer of children’s fiction: Harry Potter is only a portion of who she is. Genre for us is a world without borders. Genre is not the prison; genre is the key to the prison door.

24. BECAUSE GENRE WRITERS TEND TO BE VERY LOVELY PEOPLE

Seriously! You are! I don’t know what it is, but I think you all vent your spleens and purge your toxins in all these crazy books you write, because genre writers are frequently the kindest, most generous, most welcoming community I’ve ever had the pleasure of engaging with. Oh, and did I mention the SEXIEST, TOO? HEYYYYYYY. *bats eyelashes, makes kissy noises* (Yes, yes, I know a certain subset of the genre world is full of puerile prejudiced fuckhats, but I’m going to cleave toward optimism and suggest that those jerknuts are a very loud and cranky minority, not representative of the larger whole.)

25. BECAUSE GENRE WRITERS ARE *MY* PEOPLE

You are my people and I was incredibly thankful to be invited to Australia to give this speech, where all the fine feathered folks made me feel like the luckiest writer-boy in the whole wide world. And thanks too to all you readers here at terribleminds who share your love of writing and genre fiction with me on the daily. You guys rock. Now let’s make out.

*lurches toward you, mouth open*

* * *

Under The Empyrean Sky: Voya Magazine Review

Ahoy! New Under the Empyrean Sky review, this one from VOYA Magazine (Voice of Youth Advocates), which speaks to young adult librarians. They give it a 5Q and 4P rating — 5Q being hard to imagine it being better written (!) and 4P meaning broad general YA appeal.

I’ll make note that UtES is presently on sale for $1.99 (e-book) at Amazon.

Review below!

“In the Heartland, corn is both king and conqueror. It shackles the people to the land and allows the rich to live decadent, worry-free lives atop floating islands in the sky. Seventeen-year-old Cael McAvoy is determined to break free from a dead-end future, and when he discovers rogue vegetables growing among the cornfields, he knows he has found his ticket to the good life. But when his beloved Gwennie becomes betrothed to his uber-nemesis, Boyland, and he uncovers a secret about his father, he knows the time has come to quit living by the Empyrean’s rules and to forge an unknown future.

Wendig is the kind of writer who makes other writers jealous and turns readers into salivating fanatics. Yeah, he is that good. Not only does he take a weird, dystopian premise and make it work, he does so with panache. His descriptions are spot-on, using language that evokes the hardscrabble, Midwestern setting of the novel. Clever plot devices and characters you just want to throw a frying pan at round out the fun. Young readers will identify with Cael and his desire to break away from his oppressive life and carve out a better future, and fans of Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking series will savor the strange setting and tragic romance. This is definitely one to add to stock of young adult dystopias. The only drawback to this little gem is that readers will be left waiting for the second book in the series to come out. —Cheryl Clark.”

UNDER THE EMPYREAN SKY

Amazon / B&N / Indiebound

Favorite Stephen King Novel?

It’s Halloween and that, to me, is the time of the horror novel.

And of course, you can’t talk horror novels without some talk of one of the Masters.

So: Stephen King.

I asked this on FB a few weeks ago and it produced some interesting discussion, so I’m bringing it here to the blog because, well, YAY BLOG.

I gotta know: what’s your favorite King novel?

And, more importantly, why?

Bonus question: least favorite King novel (and also, why)?

If I had to pick my favorite — which is a tooth-pulling maneuver, because so many choices — I’d go with the entirety of the Dark Tower series, with a preference toward Wizard and Glass. Least favorite — you know, I don’t know. I tried Gerald’s Game and just couldn’t do it. Cell had a cool idea but the execution didn’t come together for me. But if I had a gun to my head: Dreamcatcher. (Doubly true of the movie, of which I am not a fan.) Still, some of King’s leastmost works are still better than so many, you know?

The Big-Ass Australia Recap: Wonders From Down Under

Apropos that it is 4AM on Holy-Crap-I-Don’t-Even-Knowsday, where I am wide awake and besieged by the vampire known as “jet lag.” As such, seems high time for my Australia recap!

*wibbles*

The Flights

Understand now that getting to the Island from Lost Australia is no easy feat. Going to the country required, for me, one 16-hour flight, and coming back featured a 13-hour-flight — which is obviously shorter but you have the added punishment of coming through LAX, which, translated, is actually: “the added punishment of flying into and through the Devil’s panopticon-shaped demon sphincter.” And once in LAX, you have to get off the plane, go through customs, get your bags, go through the agricultural check, then exit the goddamn airport, walk 451 miles to a connecting terminal only to give them your bags again and re-enter the Sisyphean drain-swirl that is security. It’s really efficient.

Anyway, point is: if you’re flying to Australia, have something to do. I brought a lot of pornography and a couple cross-stitch samplers. Entertainment for days.

Australia Itself

It’s awesome.

You should go.

End of story.

Okay, For Realsies

Listen, I like to keep my expectations in check. I got off the plane and talked to my wife and she was like, “So, is it worth it? The long flight through eternal darkness to get there?” And my first response was, “FLABBA JABBA MUZZA WUZZA,” because I had just been on a 16-hour flight through eternal darkness. But translated, I wasn’t sure. Brisbane seemed nice enough, I guess?

Then I had a flat white.

The flat white is kind of a nuanced latte — espresso, yes, but less milk, definitely less foam, all of it kind of incorporated together in a very perfect way, and it fast became my favorite coffee drink that you don’t really get in many other places (definitely not here). And I sat there with New Pal Emily Craven (what a great name!), drinking my coffee and eating poached eggs at 6:30 in the morning and it was sunny and birds were chirping and then there was a beach right in the middle of the city and I could smell flowers and I settled right into it. There came a click like I was a bone settling into its socket — and suddenly all was right in the world.

Here, then, are some things I noticed in Brisbane:

• Everybody is really fucking friendly. Warm, hospitable, laden with humor. Generous in a way that surprised me constantly.

• When you get to the country and go through customs you have to fight an increasing series of Australian animals. First, a koala. Then a kangaroo. Then an emu, cassowary, great white shark, and finally, Rupert Murdoch riding a giant redback spider. I was informed that the secret is always to let Rupert win. He is a very sore loser, that guy.

• The dollar is favorable there. But shit is occasionally ‘spensive.

• Sometimes I felt like I had entered a weird off-kilter version of the world I knew because you see these brands you recognize but with products you don’t — the Mitsubishi Pajero! The Toyota Aurion! The 7-11 Fruit Salad slurpee! Honeycomb Kit-Kats! Target-brand raisin bran flavored with TAIPAN VENOM. Everyone drives on the left! The liberal party are the conservatives! I felt like I was with the ka-tet in King’s Dark Tower series slipping into a strange mirror world.

• Bears repeating: THE FLAT WHITE.

• Brisbane is its own creature but if you really need the American comparison, it’s like if you took a nice Floridian city and drop-kicked it to Hawaii. I got vibes of both places while there. Which is not a bad combo, really, if you’re looking for good subtropical fun-times.

• Sydney and Melbourne are at odds with one another. The people of these given cities are the Champion Avatars of each, and they do battle in front of unwitting Americans. Seriously, this is a conversation I had every 20 minutes while in Australia: “I’m from Melbourne, it is the best city ever. It contains the coolest people. Unlike those uppity shitbirds from Sydney.” Then, later: “I’m from Sydney, it is the best city ever. It contains the coolest people. Unlike those soggy hipsters from Melbourne.” Then you pit them together and watch the fun. Note: nobody ever includes Brisbane in this fight, which is potentially unfair: it’s a really cool little city, and damnit if I don’t like underdogs. (But if I had to guess: I’m a Melbourne dude.)

• Actually, I think folks view Brisbane as a kind of backwater rednecksburg — Queensland being the Australian version of Texas or, again, Florida? Cattle country, cowboys, conservatives. Or so goes the feeling I got.

• I actually saw no spiders save one while there. It was a cute little jumping spider. IT WAS THE SIZE OF A PONY. No, not really. It was itty-bitty, and did not deign to fuck with me or mine. (Joke’s on me: my head will suddenly crack open and spill out funnel web spiders.)

• Australia has a sweets-loving culture. I saw more dessert cafes in a single radius than I ever have anywhere else — hell, nearby the hotel was a CHOCOLATE CHURRO PLACE. Let me just say that again. CHOCOLATE. CHURROS. *jaw loosens, drool emerges*

• Also has a strong coffee culture — but not drip coffee, as noted. Everything is espresso based. (Though I’m told they often use the espresso pull with various roasts, not just the espresso roast.) They actually pretty much kicked out Starbucks — that snooty mermaid showed up and Aussies were like, “Nope, we have great coffee already, thanks,” and then punted her back into the ocean so she could swim back to Seattle.

• I was routinely mocked for my mispronunciations of Australian things. Kookaburra is pronounced “KUCK-a-burra,” I guess? Emu is “ee-MYOO.” Australia is “STRAH-lya.” Tony Abbott is pronounced “the Devil incarnate who has manifested to set back society 100 years and also he hates women and gays and I’m pretty sure he kicks infants, that shitty motherfucker.”

• Australian politics are weird. (Says the guy whose government shut down.) They have 100+ parties? And some of them are political parties based in part on… hobbies? Like, there’s a racing party? A fishing party? A sex party? Wait, why don’t we have a sex party? Goddamn Puritans.

GenreCon 2013

Okay, onto the reason I was actually there.

Genrecon.

GenreCon is one of my top two writing conferences ever — the second and equal being Crossroads, which takes place in Macon, Georgia every year.

Here’s why I like both of these conferences:

First, they are genre-inclusive. They love writing in general, and are agnostic to the type of writing you do. No judgment. Nobody makes frowny faces when you tell them you write romance, or sci-fi, or pornographic Jurassic Park fan-fic.

Second, they’re small and lean and provide short, sharp, intensive programming.

Third, the love and energy is palpable. BOOKLOVE, BABY.

Fourth, I experience more people asking about writing than publishing. This is a problem with a lot of conferences where folks want to know how they get published before they care about how they actually write a good book. Not to say publishing shouldn’t be discussed or on the agenda — but the horse needs to be firmly thrust in front of the cart on this one, and for many, it ain’t. But at these two conferences I feel that the priority is just right.

Fifth, each is just well put together. Feels casual but professional. Loose, but capable.

GenreCon was really very amazing. It took place at the Queensland State Library, which is amazeballs — wait, the kids aren’t saying that anymore, are they? What are they saying, now? Majesti-testes? Fine. That works. It was majesti-testes. Truly beautiful library, unlike any I’ve seen in the ol’ US-of-A.

Oh, also? People knew me! How exciting that they were excited to meet me. That felt really good. (And really weird — it’s like, what’s wrong with you people? I have to live with me all the time, this should not be an exciting moment for anybody.)

At the “juggling act” panel, we got to discuss how to juggle several writing projects with the vigors and burdens of Real Life.

At the “antagonists” panel, we got to discuss what makes a kick-ass antagonist (and Pam Newton and I got to fanwank over The Wire because, how can you not?).

At the banquet, they actually let me get up twice and speak — once to offer up a presentation of 25 Reasons Genre Fiction Fucking Rocks, another to answer a 25-Question interview put forth by the intrepid Kate Cuthbert, who asked some hilarious questions. (My favorite involved her starting a question about “writing tools” before ending the question by asking, “So who are some of the biggest tools in the writing industry?”) Oh, and yes, I will be posting the 25 Reasons here at the blog in the next day or two (slightly edited to make it more bloggy and less speechy).

Bonus: a workshop on story structure — presented by Rebekah Turner and Charlotte Nash using 80s/90s action movies to detail narrative architecture (Die Hard, Terminator, Speed, Predator, Aliens, The Matrix). Aw, yiss.

It was just a great conference. I knew it was great because when I was done I was all frowny-faced and maudlin over it being over. I wanted to pout and punch things and demand MORE GENRECON PLEASE NOW THANK YOU BYE.

High-five to the many Genrecon Ninjas who welcomed me and a host of writerly types — Meg Vann, Peter Ball, Emily, Sophie, Aimee, Stacey, Simon, and more.

The Peeps

(Images of the GenreCon folks here, photos by the wunderbar Cat Sparx.)

Upon arriving, Emily Craven picked me up, gave me TimTams, took me for coffee and breakfast.

Then at the venue I got to meet Lois Spangler, a transmedia acolyte who was immediately like, “We are going to go to have chocolate churros and strawberries now with my friend Kevin,” and I was like, YES OKAY HELLO. She’s one of those people who, like Emily and so many others there, I can legitimately point to and say, “YAY NEW FRIEND.”

We did indeed get chocolate churros and strawberries with voiceover guru Kevin Powe, and while there I discovered that I had inadvertently stepped into the nexus of a weird Venn diagram of People I Already Knew. Lois knew Christy Dena, who I know from Cool Transmedia Stuff. Kevin was rooming with Patrick and Nicole O’Duffy — Patrick I’ve known for over fifteen years when we both did work for White Wolf way back when. Then Kevin talked about me to his friend Colin, who is partners with Kelly, one of my Flickr contacts also from way back when. Later other connections would manifest: Aaron Rosenberg, Nick Fortugno, and more.

At the reception I got to meet a whole host of awesome humans, including two of my favorite people in the whole world, Emma Osbourne and Eliza Rose. Both talented authors. Emma with her first pro sale. Eliza a student of Clarion West. Sometimes you just click with people — and these are my people. Trust me when I say you’ll be reading the stories of these two in the years to come. They will own your ass before you know it.

Kate Cuthbert is smart and funny and Canadian, and did a kick-ass job at the banquet — she’s so awesome I hope America can import her, shhh. *steals her*

Margaret Atwood said, “Go and meet my friend Cat Sparx,” and lo, I did, and it was good. Cat is rad people. (Doing a PhD in climate change themes found in YA fiction.) Cat’s the one who schooled me on the weirdnesses of Aussie politics.

Crime gurus John Connolly and Kathryn Fox: great energy, epic talent, easy conversationalists.

Clewdd (pronounced “Cleweth” or, also, “Lord Thornoflox Spangdiggler”) knows what he did.

I got to meet Imelda Evans! She brought me TimTams!

Ingrid Jonach was there! A new Strange Chemistry author, woo hoo!

And yes, I did indeed meet the mighty motherfucker known as Patrick O’ Duffy. He is a tall, magnificent specimen of Ron Perlmannishness, and he turns in a throaty, disturbing karaoke performance of Total Eclipse of the Heart. In fact, that’s actually how I met him — the first night of the event, a bunch of people said, “We are now going to karaoke,” and I’d never done karaoke before, and so after drinks at the bar (aka karaoke lubrication) they wrangled me into a taxi and suddenly I was in this dark brothel-esque room with half-drunk Australians performing karaoke — and suddenly the door opens and light floods in, framing the O’Duffy shape in the door. And he came in and sang and then there was more drinking and I did a horrible mumbly-mouthed version of “Thrift Shop” with Emma Osbourne and LIFE WAS GOOD. And drunk. And good. Point is: Patrick is fine people, and his wife Nicole is doubly awesome, if only for being able to keep him in line — a task of great peril, I do believe.

And I finally got to meet Christy Dena! Holy crap. She’s a storyteller on the edge, man.

Smarter than all of us.

Who else?

So many folks. Joel Naoum! Kim Wilkins! Alex Adsett! Anne Gracie! Dean Peterson! Angela Slatter! Alicia Burke! Dave Versace! J. Michael Melican! PM Newton! Lisa Hannet! Jodi Cleghorn! Narrelle Harris! Rosie from Fangbooks! Cathryn Hein! Gemma Smith! And others I’m forgetting because I have a brain like a moth-chewed cardigan! I swoon with jet lag!

Goddamn Jet Lag

Jet lag is some real shit, man.

See, I got duped. I went to Australia, and did everything you weren’t supposed to do — I had a beer at the airport, a gin on the plane, I got there and had coffee, took a nap on the first day, then the first night of the conference (Friday) I got liquored up and did late-night karaoke.

And for the most part, I didn’t really get hit by any lag. I slept pretty well. Got up at normal times. My sleep pattern snapped right into place.

Then I came home.

I got cocky.

And I got throat-punched.

The first day was mostly just tired, but now I’m in that weird state where I feel like I’m on a boat and the world is moving beneath my feet and I don’t have insomnia so much as I lay down to sleep and vacillate wildly between DEEP SLEEP WITH VIVID DREAMS and PERIODS OF TOTAL ALERTNESS, and I do this for the entire night, creating a kind of swimmy fever-dream state where I never really know if I’m awake or dreaming?

It’s very bizarre.

I assume this is going to take a few days to escape.

But jet lag, man: it’s some sinister business.

TimTams

TimTams bear a mention.

I’d heard about TimTams — a cookie, or “biscuit” where two wafers surround a chocolate filling and are themselves dipped in chocolate — and I was intrigued but expecting little. I mean, it’s not like we don’t have cookies here in the States. We have a whole slave circuit of Keebler elves churning sweet treats out of their little tree factories. And we have Twinkies, too. So I was like, sure, okay, I’ll try your TimTams, and I’ll smile and nod and be underwhelmed.

I WAS WRONG.

I’ll admit that now. I have to admit it, because my face is smeared with chocolate.

TimTams are an amazing little cookie. Addictive in the way that I’m pretty sure they are Blue Meth sandwiches. The first morning there Emily gave me a sleeve and I ate half that sleeve before 10AM and I already knew that I had a very real problem that only MORE TIMTAMS COULD CURE GOBBLE GOBBLE RAAAH

Aussies are enablers in this. They made it rain TimTams upon me. I came home with an armload of these things, and now my family is hooked, too.

They’re trouble. Stay away.

*eats TimTam, cries*

The Rest Of The Trip

The days following GenreCon passed in a blur. I moved hotels. I ate emu and alligator and lilly-pillies and was forced to do the TimTam slam on video and then I took a cruise up the Brisbane river and tried to get a selfie with a kangaroo and dicked around with koalas (no koala chlamydia, relax) and had an owl touch my hair (no, really) and drank a wine called Squid’s Fist and drank a gin cocktail that was so sweet I now have a brand new Type of Diabetes (Type VII, aka “Diabeedus Rex”) and hung out with Clwedd and ate Moreton Bay bugs (think Facehugger xenomorphs) and saw Gravity (holy fuck) and ate Mexican food (I’d call them “tacos” but yeah no not really) and ate a chocolate waffle concoction that gave me another new Type of Diabetes (“Diabeedus X: The Diabeedus That Destroyed Manhattan”) and and and –

I probably did some other shit, too.

But I don’t even know what day it is.

So I’m going to go ride my wombat mount and go find a flat white.

In my dreams.

*eats another TimTam, cries more*

*dies from jet lag*

Flash Fiction Challenge: Random Song Title

Last week’s challenge: “Horror in Three Sentences.”

This week’s challenge:

Pretty easy.

Pull a random song from — well, wherever it is you like to grab random songs. iTunes! Spotify! Pandora! Some old man on the corner who randomly spouts song titles! Whatever. Get a random song title. That is now the the title of your flash fiction story this week, which should top out at ~1000 words.

Due by Oct 25th, noon, EST.

Post at your online space.

Link back here.

Now get writing, word-herders.