Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 256

2011 In The Rearview, 2012 In The Mirror Of My Shades

Looking back, staring forward. Standing on this head-of-the-pin moment between two years — an arbitrary distinction, perhaps, from when one calendar becomes useless and a new one must be hung, but a distinction just the same and a fine enough moment to pause and reflect.

Personally, it's been a good year. Nah, fuck that, it's been a great year.

Double Dead hit shelves. And is, I'm told, selling well. Well enough where — well, I won't spoil any of that news right now, but oh, there shall be news. Blackbirds and its protagonist, Miriam Black, found a home after a small but confidence-boosting bidding war, and now sits comfortably nestled in the arms of an Angry Robot. Further, it has a jaw-dropping cover that still geeks me out to this day. (You can totally read the first chapter of that book at the Angry Robot site, by the by.) The transmedia project I co-wrote with Lance Weiler, Collapsus, got nominated for an International Digital Emmy. Our short film, Pandemic (watch here!) was at Sundance and continues to get lots of attention.

I also self-published this year — six books starting last January. Sales have, on the whole, been excellent. Curiously, they're weakest for my fictional offerings. Shotgun Gravy sold well in the beginning but has since tapered off — I've got Bait Dog waiting in the wings to receive a good clean polish, but I want to see if I can get some more readers on board with Atlanta Burns #1 first. We'll see.

I read some fucking awesome books, too. I'm a picky finicky dickhead of a reader, but this year has been a bounty of great books –Robert McCammon's The Five and Hunter In The Woods; Christa Faust's Money Shot and Choke Hold and Hoodtown; Adam Christopher's Empire State; Anthony Neil Smith's Choke On Your Lies; Duane Swierzcynski's Fun and Games; Lauren Beukes' Zoo City; Matthew McBride's Frank Sinatra In A Blender; Matt Forbeck's Carpathia; John Hornor's Southern Gods; Stephen Blackmoore's City of the Lost and Dead Things (the bad-ass sequel, and it's a toss up as to whether it or Zoo City were my year's favorite reads). Certainly some I'm missing.

Of course, the biggest and craziest and most wonderful thing was the birth of this little dude:

The boy is a constant source of amusement and adoration, and even when he's not sleeping or karate kicking me in the trachea or accidentally drooling into my open mouth (seriously, that just happened the other day), he's an endless delight and so cute he'll turn even the hardest charcoal hearts into a big gooey wad of marshmallow fluff. We love him very much. I mean, duh.

Of course, a month before my son was born and a few days after my birthday, my dog of 13 years, Yaga, passed away. That was hard on us and sometimes, still is (I had a dream the other night I was playing with him in the snow — both a wonderful dream to have, and sad to wake up from and realize that it wasn't quite true), and it was strange that in the span of a single month my dog died and my son was born. Parity and opposition: life and death in all its finery.

Not everything worked out perfectly. The television pilot officially fell through with TNT, and our film project has momentum, but it's the momentum of a slowly-rolling kickball rather than the pinball's swiftness we'd hope for. Almost had an LA agent; that didn't quite click. Some friendships were made stronger this year. Some were decidedly not. Life progresses just the same.

I've said in the past and I'll say again: I don't truck with regret. Regret is perhaps one of the most worthless emotions we have as humans — we are who we are and all the moments and choices and happenstance has formed the equation that adds up to the sum of us. For good or bad, for better or for worse. Like who you are? Keep on keeping on. Don't like it? Change something. But don't get mired in regret. Your boots will get stuck there and you soon start to realize that it has no value, offers no function. Regret doesn't let you rewrite anything. You don't get a mulligan. It's one thing to find a lesson and to learn from it, but regret is something altogether more insidious and, at the same time, worthless.

So, fuck regret in the ear with a meerschaum pipe. Mostly because I wanted to say "meerschaum."

Onward, then, to 2012.

What will that bring?

Well, I can't know for sure.

Blackbirds and its sequel, Mockingbird, will land.

I'll continue to self-publish. I've got a novel — a creepy li'l something called The Altar — that begs to have the DIY treatment, I think. The outline is done, I just need to write it. (I make it sound so easy! Yeah. No.)

I'm almost halfway through Dinocalypse Now, the Spirit of the Century novel for Evil Hat. It features love triangles and professorial apes and psychic dinosaur goodness. It's a challenge to write, honestly — a good challenge, but a challenge just the same.

Speaking of Evil Hat, I've got a wealth of stories in from the Don't Rest Your Head anthology, called Don't Read This Book. Got some great authors on that one, so keep your grapes peeled.

I've got more plans for the website (Kickstarter, quite possibly) and for some other writing books that both do and do not come out of posts here on the blog.

More to come, more to come.

Thanks all for coming here and making for a great 2011.

Here's to 2012, then.

What's on your agenda for the new year?

Top 25 Terribleminds Posts Of 2011

This blog has seen its readership swell like a shoulder suffering from bursitis, like a river-sunk corpse, like me at Christmastime. (MMM COOKIES THEN BOURBON THEN COOKIES WHY PANTS NO FIT NOW FALL ASLEEP UNDER TREE ZZZZ) I mean, for real — in 2011, readership here almost quadrupled. I'm not sure if you're here because you think the site is funny or offers wisdom or simply because you like when I make poop jokes and say "motherfucker," but whatever the reason, I'm happy you're here.

It's always interesting to see which posts strike a chord and which don't — which ones catch fire and go "viral" via sites like Stumbleupon or what-have-you. Most of these top posts of the year come from this year, which is cool. A few standbys from 2010 show up again (dang, that Beware of Writer post keeps popping up here and there), but most of these are from the last 12 months. Plainly, the "Lists of 25″ posts are popular — I know some folks don't like "list" blog posts, and to them I apologize. It's just, lists are easily digestible online reading. You can read and skip and easily break a single post down into digestible snidbits. It also, for me, forces me to put more content in a given post. Each item needs to be packed with potent writer-flavored antioxidants, so (as with Twitter) it demands a certain brevity.

Anyway. Here, then, are the top 25 posts of the year here at jolly old terribleminds.

Thanks for coming by here, you silly little marmosets, you. I should ask:

What was your favorite post of the year?

1. 25 Things Every Writer Should Know

2. 25 Things You Should Know About Character

3. Beware Of Writer

4. 25 Ways To Fuck With Your Characters

5. Turning Writers Into Motherfucking Rock Stars

6. Why Your Novel Won't Get Published

7. 25 Things You Should Know About NaNoWriMo

8. Why Your Self-Published Book May Suck A Bag Of Dicks

9. Six Signs You're Not Ready To Be A Professional Writer

10. No, Seriously, I'm Not Fucking Around, You Really Don't Want To Be A Writer

11. 25 Things You Should Know About Storytelling

12. 25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue

13. Of Google-Plus And Circle Jerks

14. NaNoWhoNow? NaNoWriMo Dos And Don'ts

15. 25 Things You Should Know About Self-Publishing

16. 25 Ways To Become A Better Writer

17. 25 Things Writers Should Know About Rejection

18. 25 Things You Should Know About Plot

19. 25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Novel

20. How To Tell If You're A Writer

21. Lies Writers Tell

22. 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror

23. 25 Things Writers Should Know About Social Media

24. 25 Ways To Plot, Plan and Prep Your Story

25. Why Writers Drink

Your Top Three Books Of The Year?

Let's assume that now that the holidays have largely come and gone, folks have received e-readers aplenty. I don't have data on this, but I'm guessing it's true — I bet the Kindles were flying out of the Amazon warehouses like the whirring death-blades of Krull. (That's right. A Krull reference. Suck on that, Internet.)

So. Seems like a good time to, before the new year rises out of the desert sands and opens its jagged maw to swallow us and digest us in a belly thick with temporal juices, revisit the books you read this year.

Your top three reads this year?

Doesn't have to be books published in 2011.

Go.

Flash Fiction Challenge: "Christmas In A Strange Place"

First up, last week's challenge — "The Unexplainable Photo" — is live and worth checking out. Killer stories there. If you're looking for the next Blackbloom challenge this week — there shan't be one at present. The last challenge received only tepid response (I think eight total entries), which isn't enough to sustain the challenge. My hope (assumption?) is that the holidays maybe cut into the Blackbloom stuff, so I'll try again with the worldbuilding challenge in the new year. Check back in another two weeks. (Which means, the Create-Your-Own-Myth challenge is still open.)

For now, then, it's all flash fiction challenges, all the way down –

Today's challenge is simple enough.

The challenge is the phrase, "Christmas in a strange place."

What does that mean? I dunno. Prison? A distant moon? An underwater base? A WWII submarine? Your call. That's why it's a challenge, after all. Oh, except the challenge is heightened:

You've got till tomorrow, Christmas Eve, by noon EST, to write.

Not a week, then.

Merely one day.

You have up to 1000 words, as usual. Any genre. Post at your blog, make sure we have a link. By now I expect you know the drill, but there it is, just the same.

One random participant will receive… well, I don't know what. A holiday gift of sorts.

Now get to writing, my little elves and reindeer.

December 22nd

Was four years ago today that my father passed away, and I wrote a little something about it in one of my e-books, Revenge of the Penmonkey. Thought I'd take a piece out of that introduction and pop it here, talk a little bit about my father's death and what that meant for me as a writer. It's still a weird day for me and I guess that'll never change — my father died during the holidays and so did his father (a grandfather I never met) and I know that troubled him every time this season came sneaking up on us. Well, whatever the case, here's that thing I wrote. Thanks for reading.

* * *

A lot of stories are, at the heart, Daddy Issue stories. Star Wars. Lost. Hell, remember that scene in Die Hard where John McClane finds out that Hans Gruber is his father? I'm pretty sure I have that right.

This one is no different.

It's not unique to writers, this story. Everybody's got someone in their hearts they're trying to appease. Or live up to. Or blame for their troubles. Often a parent. Or a parental figure. Or even a child.

Even when I'd finally left the day job and concentrated on writing full-time, my Dad never really seemed all that interested in hearing about my work, though he had let go of that old harangue about writing not being a real job. I figured, okay, we've reached a peaceful stalemate, here. I'll keep doing what I do, and he'll pretend I do something else and never the twain shall meet.

Cut to a couple years later. I was by that point married and the wife and I took a trip to visit my Dad at his new house in Colorado. We fished and drank margaritas and drove ATVs and hit up every lunatic yard sale we could find in the desert and the mountains and all was well.

Then came the day I met George. George, my father's closest friend out West, maybe all over. I'd met him once before but only briefly. The wife and I returned from an ATV trip out in the BLM lands that adjoined my father's property and there stood George in the driveway, shootin' the shit with Dad.

We went up and started talking to George and he jumped right into talking about my writing. Animatedly. About my script work in particular but also the novels and the freelancing. He knew about all of it. Details I wouldn't have thought my father retained, much less shared with anybody else. Then George said, "Oh, your Dad always talks about all the great things you're doing, he's so proud of what you've accomplished."

Blink, blink.

Awestruck.

Now, maybe you get this, maybe you don't. But to me, a son hearing that his father is proud of him—especially a father who has never been particularly forthcoming with that information—is like trumpets and fireworks and parading elephants and a marching band going through your head oomphing out your favorite song. It's equal parts epiphany and apotheosis as all the tumblers in your lock fall into place and a big door opens up and inside the frame of that door is your father and, gods and little fishes, he's actually proud of you. Proud enough to tell his friends about you.

It was a big moment. It was, as alcoholics describe it, a moment of clarity.

Crystalline, clean, revitalizing.

I felt like I was no longer fighting to prove something, but rather, to live up to something.

From that point forward writing became more about the promise than the protest.

 

* * *

 

Dad died about a year later. Prostate cancer that was allowed to get out of control. Got into the lymph and then took off like a shot. They thought they had it under control but it had found its way into an unholy host of his organs and things weren't looking so hot.

In the hospital, we revisited a lot of the old stories, but I got to hear new ones, too. Like how he was involved in a knife fight at a bar, or how he helped accidentally start a small riot at Veterans Stadium during a Phillies game (and was banned fruitlessly from Phillies games in the future). A theme found its way into those stories: all the fights my father had been in. Because this was another fight, this scrap with cancer, this tangle with Death. He'd won all his skirmishes in the past and, we all imagined he'd win this skirmish, too. Worse for wear, but alive just the same.

It was maybe a week later that they put him on hospice care. My wife, my sister and I went to see him and it was really quite strange because that day everybody and their mother showed up at his house—all uncoordinated, all unbeknownest to one another. Family and co-workers and old friends.

He looked like a ghost. Could barely speak. I don't know what meds they had him on but they were serious. At a point he lurched upright and decided to go upstairs and my uncle went with him while I waited at the bottom of the stairs. My uncle called my name. I went up. Found my father sitting there in his room, just starting to slump over.

I went to one side of him, my uncle on the other. I held the old man. Touched his neck. Felt his pulse literally stop. And then he lurched up, took a great big heaving intake of breath, as if he were emerging from the bracing waters of a frozen pond—

And that was it. Last breath. He was gone. We lifted him up and carried him to his bed and… you could tell that he wasn't in there anymore.

 

* * *

 

Kind of fucked me up for a while, his death. It came on the heels of other deaths, too—both grandmothers, a beloved aunt. I channeled it into my writing, though not necessarily consciously. I just know that in my 20s I was only peripherally aware of death but suddenly it was something I was forced to deal with in a very big and very real way, and further, was forced to realize that I, too, was going to die some day.

I don't want to create some kind of object lesson out of my father's passing—it should be enough that he led and left this life, but just the same, I can't help but find some kind of truth in there. Dad was a man who lived for his retirement. He always had his eye on that prize, always looking to the end game, and willing to endure whatever career miseries he had to endure because at the end of the tunnel was pension and social security and Colorado and hunting whenever he wanted to and the freedom to travel. And the real shame of it is, he only made it a couple-few years into that retirement, and that was that. Game over.

That's a telling thing, a sad lesson not just for writers, but for anybody. And I recognize that it's a lesson of some privelege, but the lesson remains true just the same: you can't live for what's coming, you have to live for what's going on now. Because you don't have any guarantees that tomorrow you won't fall down a sinkhole or catch pneumonia or be crushed beneath a chunk of frozen shit falling off the underside of a 747 passing overhead. Life is sometimes long, but it's also short at the same time. We only get one turn on the carousel. And so it behooves you to try to be the best person you can right now. It demands you try to go out and do the things that make you happy—not tomorrow, but today.

Because nobody knows what tomorrow may bring, or if it will come at all.

Don't Get Burned By Branding

Been thinking a bit about "brand" recently in terms of being an author.

For illumination, we turn briefly toward Wikipedia, that cultivated encyclopedia of the commons, and there we discover that the American Marketing Association defines branding as:

"Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."

Of course, you might look to an older definition –

As a verb, you might mean, "To be marked with a branding iron."

You might further look toward one of the synonyms of the word: "stigmatize."

Suddenly, I'm thinking less about Coca-Cola and more about a white-hot iron pressing into a beast's flesh, the fur smoldering, the skin charring, blisters popping up like the bubbles in bubble wrap.

Not coincidentally, I now want a hamburger and a cold glass of Coke.

But that's really neither here nor there. What I'm trying to suss out is, where does this leave an author in terms of branding himself or being branded? Is this more a symbol of what the author represents to customers, or is it instead an indelible mark scorched into the author's metaphorical flesh?

I gotta be honest: I'm starting to lean toward the crispy char-mark than the marketing strategy. Because here's what can happen: you write a handful of books of one type, and then you, as an author seeking to explore new territory, seeking to grow and change and spread your penmonkey seed wings in other genres and styles and biblio-realms, discover that, uh-oh, you've been branded. You're suddenly That Guy — you're the Guy Who Writes Splatterpunk Horror or the Girl Who Writes Scientologist Steampunk Space Erotica, and soon as you want to do differently, even once, nobody wants to hear it. More specifically, publishers don't want to publish it — you've got your niche, you've built your fence, so now isn't the time to stray, little pony. Don't make us get out the shock-prods. Bzzt.

That's not a rail against specialization, mind you — you want to forever write Hard Sci-Fi in Epistolary Format, hey, fuck it, find your bliss, little word-herder. But the moment you want to do differently, you're going to find that brand starts to itch and burn and next thing you know you've got the loop of a catch-pole tightening around your neck and dragging you back to where you came from.

I mean, in 20 years do I want to be the DOUBLE DEAD guy? Fuck no. I don't want to just write horror. Or urban fantasy. Or writing advice. I want to write it all. I want to write YA and pulp and maybe something more literary and some creative non-fiction and screenplays and TV shows and games and Martian manifestos and vile tweets and thoughtful reminiscence and — well, you get the point. I don't want to be kept away from any story I want to tell. Put differently –

I want to write All The Words.

What's a writer to do, then?

A few things, I think.

First: diversify early. Play the field. Write multiple things across multiple genres and establish yourself as an author who can write all kinds of awesome shit. Joe Lansdale did this early on: that guy wrote insane pulp and hard crime and funny books and short stories about Godzilla. No end to what Lansdale could do. (And I'll note that such early diversification is easiest with short stories — you can write a lot of them quickly and get them out there in short order.)

Second: embrace self-publishing to some extent — I'm not a fan of putting all your eggs in one basket because next thing you know, those eggs are hatching and now you're holding a basket of angry pterodactyls. See? Don't you wish you left some eggs back at the fucking henhouse? (I think that's the point of that old saying.) Self-publishing gives you strong authorial control over your content. You want to write a horror novel, a teen drama, and a sci-fi satire? You can. You can write all three and give them to readers and say, "Ta-da! Look what I can do!" You needn't be contained or constrained as a self-published author.

Third: ensure that any branding you do is less about what you write and more about how you write. Your strongest marker as an author is your voice. (In fact, I'd argue we need to stop talking about Brand and start talking about Voice.) Your name and your voice should be all that matter in terms of your fiction — you find a writer you love, you should be willing to read whatever that writer writes. To bring Lansdale back into it, I'd read anything that guy writes. He could write a poem about the goddamn phonebook and I'd buy three copies. Lansdale is Lansdale — anything he writes is his and his alone. His sound, his style, his skill, it creeps into everything he does, soaking it through like a sponge. That's what I want from an author: not genre, not a reiterative protagonist, not a ditch in which they seem forever trapped.

Am I glad Robert McCammon no longer writes strictly horror?

You betcher penmonkey ass, I am.

Don't be burned by branding — especially branding you don't control. Nobody puts Baby in the corner. Baby puts herself in the corner, and then when she's done with the corner, she karate-kicks her way out of it and goes on a crazy Roadhouse adventure with the ghost of Patrick Swayze.

…uhh.

I may have lost the thread there a little bit.

All I'm saying is –

Own your voice. Live up to your name.

That's what matters to readers.

(Related: Joelle Charbonneau talks about writing what you want to write. She also notes that our agent, Stacia Decker, encourages us to write what we want to write, which is exactly what you want in an agent.)

25 Ways For Writers To Help Other Writers

"Aww, gee shucks, mister, but you said December was the month of no mercy! Gosh and golly, talkin' about how writers help other writers doesn't sound too merciless, now does it?"

Oh, shut up, Beaver. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. This is the month of my boot shattering your penmonkey jaw and then I dance on your body and crush your chest with the weight of my blowhard advice.

But c'mon, son. It's Christmas week. It's time to spread a little holly jolly cheer.

Time to soak ourselves in Egg Nog and dance on tables, urinating nutmeggy love into one another's eyes.

Um. … yeah. Let's just move onto the list.

Here, then, are ways for writers to help other writers. Please to enjoy.

(And add your own in the comments!)

1. Buy Books

Writers don't have to work very hard to get free books. It's almost eerie — sometimes you swivel your office chair and there, on the floor behind you, is a book you never bought, a book not-yet-released, and the book whispers to you. Read me, it hisses. So, it's important to make sure you spend some coin on books. Books by authors you know. Books by authors you don't. Support individuals and support the ecosystem. I don't need to tell you this — I don't know a single writer who doesn't buy a small freighter-load of new books every year — but, it's worth mentioning just the same. Books, like puppies and wayward elves, need homes.

2. Tell Others To Buy The Books

For some fucking goofy-ass reason, people listen to writers. They think we know shit. (Uhh, and we totally do, heh-heh! Um. Yeah. *distracts you with a shiny tree ornament*) The assumption is that writers write books and so, writers are authorities on things like, say, books. So, when you read a good book, share the love. Doesn't need to be #fridayreads, either — spread the gospel however you can, whenever you can.

3. Give Away Their Books

Someone not convinced that your authorial recommendations are made of gold? BOOM. FACE. Give them a book. Maybe that means giving them a book off your shelf by a writer you know and love. Maybe it means gifting them the book (and these days, gifting e-books is getting hella easy, so why not?). Sometimes it's not about the book sale but the gentle pivoting of new readers toward favorite writers. Best way to do that is to lead by example: "Here is a book. You will read it. I have a gun."

4. Offer To Read

We all have scripts and books and poetry and all manner of the written word that exists without reflection — we write it and we've no idea how it really is. It helps to have others take a look at it, see if we're crazy, or geniuses, or crazy geniuses, or whether we're just, y'know, pudding-brained dipshits. Sometimes it helps to have a fellow writer with all her writerly skills at the fore to come take a look inside the monster and see if and how the beast purrs — or if it's just coughing up a mucusy hairball. *kack*

5. Sweet, Sweet Blurbage

I've recently gone out asking for blurbs, re: BLACKBIRDS, and boy howdy is it a shameless booty-shake — you're saying, "Here, please carve time out of your life to read my novel of dubious distinction and then provide me with not just your thoughts but your thoughts distilled down into market-savvy nuggets of book-selling goodness." Don't get me wrong, this isn't necessarily bad for the blurber — hell, I've had the chance to blurb three novels recently (Forbeck's CARPATHIA, Blackmoore's CITY OF THE LOST, Christopher's EMPIRE STATE) that reminded me why I love books in the first place. So, as a writer, be nice and offer blurbs where possible. I mean, don't blurb a novel you don't like (or, worse, haven't read), but if you're into it — blurb it. And man, "blurb" is a strange word. I AM EMPEROR BLURB OF PLANET BLURB BEWARE MY BLURB ARMY! … no, I dunno. I really shouldn't be allowed to write blog posts at 6:00AM on Sunday morning. Someone out there better send me some coffee. And fast.

6. Recommend Them To An Agent

Sure, some authors get agents the old-fashioned way — you write the book, you query, they want the manuscript, they read the manuscript, you send them cookies and bacon and a cigar box full of money and/or embarrassing pictures, and voila, you have an agent. But some agents only work on referrals, and so it behooves some authors — when they find a book-and-author combo they believe in — to recommend that author to an agent. Help forge those relationships.

7. Recommend Them To An Editor

Some writers work with (and require the services of) independent editors — once you find just such an editor, it's like gold in your pocket. Share the wealth, then: tell fellow authors that if they need a good editor, then as it turns out you know just the one. The editor will thank you, too. With a puppy. It's in all the editor-author contracts: each referral gets the author a new puppy. I'm sure I didn't just dream that.

8. Get Them Work

We've all seen them camped out on bridges and beneath underpasses: a grungy rag-worn army of lost penmonkeys holding up signs, "WILL MAKE UP SHIT FOR FOOD," or "I FOUGHT IN THE SELF-PUBLISHING WARS OF 2012 AND LOST BOTH EYES." Here, then, is a "teach a man to fish" situation — if you have work to offer or work you're passing on, it's always nice to recommend another writer for that work.

9. Point Them Toward Opportunity

A variant of the above, if you know of a cool opportunity — a nifty anthology, a new lit-blog, a script contest, a chance to write the next Denny's menu — then point them toward it. Share the wealth of possibility.

10. Buy Them A Drink

Whether we're talking a cup of tea, coffee, Tito's vodka or the tears of a grieving unicorn, writers will always always always appreciate a drink procured by a fellow penmonkey.

11. Buy Them A Meal

We've seen the commercials. The Sarah McLachlan music cues up. Aaaarrrms ooooof an Angel… and then we get a parade of images: hungry writers gnawing on manuscripts, caged, wild-eyed and apparently starving. And then you're like, "Man, for a bunch of hungry guys they sure look a little fat." Never mind that. We'll appreciate a meal from time to time. If you're having a good year, buy a meal. Cosmically and karmically, this should pass its way down: next time you're having a bad year, a writer should appear and procure for you a free meal, too. That's Penmonkey Law. That's Holy Writ. Goddamnit.

12. Buy Them An Annual Health Care Plan

We writers probably have like, scoliosis or scurvy or syphilis  and could really use a bestselling author to be our patron saint and buy us a yearly health care plan. I kid, I kid — but here's where I don't kid. Sometimes writers do fall into bad times, and that means they do genuinely need a leg up with medical bills. It's helpful when other writers come to their aid, maybe organizing a fund (small or large) to help cover some costs.

13. Be A Sounding Board

Sometimes writers just want to talk shit out — does this plot work? Is this a good move? Will you listen to my pitch? Do you know anything about this publisher or this studio? Have you seen my pants? Have you seen my shame? Did I leave my shame in the pocket of my pants? Writers uniquely understand other writers, and so it behooves writers to listen to other writers.

14. Advise Them (When They Want Advice)

Sometimes it isn't about listening but actually about offering advice. Writers are uniquely placed to understand the troubles of other writers, so it makes sense to not, you know, ask advice from a plumber or that toothless homeless lady who keeps dead mice in a mason jar. Just the same, unsolicited advice usually isn't appreciated. From anybody. For anybody. Ever. Trust me on this one.

15. Fuck It, Just Talk To Them

It's not always about being a sounding board. Writers are lonely little penmonkeys — we do not travel in packs or tribes or swing from tree to tree with our hooting brethren. Our day-to-day necessitates we operate in relative isolation, and so sometimes we just want to talk. To someone. About anything. Writers talking to other writers means both writers get to emerge from solitary confinement for a little while. That's referred to as a "win-win." Or maybe an "ook-ook." I dunno. Don't look at me. I'm not wearing pants.

16. Give Them Space To Crash… At Your Blog

Just as some writers do book tours, they also do blog tours — hopping from blog to blog, exposing themselves (er, not like that, you filthy little scum-badger) to different audiences in order to hopefully gain some new fans and friends and thump their drum without spending tons of bank in the process. Offer up your blog for that purpose to writers you dig and respect if need be. Share the digital space when possible.

17. Give Them Space To Crash… On Your Couch

Like I said: some writers do book tours. Or maybe they need to visit a place to do research or meet with publishers or escape extradition for their crimes against humanity. Either way, it helps from time to time to offer up your couch or a dog-bed or a spider-infested root cellar. I'm not suggesting you run a halfway house or something: your home needn't be an Author Hotel for Wayward Writers. But for friends and colleagues, you'll help them save a little money and likely earn crash-space on their couch if ever needed.

18. Defend Them From Trolls

Writers are sometimes Internet magnets for those Human Canker Sores known as "trolls," and it helps to have other writers rise to the defense (though, of course, one should always be careful not to feed the trolls, too). Mostly it's just, stand tall for your penmonkey brethren.  You feel me?

19. Help Them Hide The Bodies

Sometimes an Internet flame war gets out of control and next thing you know, you've gone and killed a couple guys. We writers are inventive folks, and so it behooves us to bring the full creative weight of our critical thinking skills to bear on the task of helping our author buddies bury some motherfucking bodies. Uhh. I mean, this is all totally metaphorical. Totally. … Unrelated: anybody have a pickup truck?

20. If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say…

Hey, we all come across books we don't like or writers we don't respect. I've seen writers slag on Stephenie Meyer and Dan Brown — and, trust me, I'm not a fan of either writer. But you get little value out of bagging on other authors, even if they appear to be easy targets. If writers are accepted curators of literary culture, then it pays to point people toward the Good Stuff and instead happily ignore all the Crap Stuff. Do we even need to talk about Dan Brown or Stephenie Meyer? No, we probably don't. Instead use your time to point readers toward awesome writers, instead. Be a fountain, not a drain.

21. Eschew Public Arguments

It's best not to get on hot, sweaty writer-on-writer arguments. Nobody wins when writers fight. Except cats. I don't comprehend the correlation, but whenever writers argue, cats gain more lives. True story!

22. Assist With Technological Challenges

It's like that line from Ferris Bueller: "The Internet moves fast. If you don't stop and learn about the newest coolest thing, you'll be advertising your books on a Myspace page or a Geocities blog while you sink deep into the tar pits with all the other mighty reptiles." I think that's the quote. Point being, the ground is changing beneath the author's feet these days — from social media to self-publishing, from HTML5 to transmedia, we've things we need to learn and those things will pile up into a wibbly-wobbly heap if it goes unattended. Other writers are equipped to share and teach about this heretical realm.

23. Share Your Penmonkey Experiences

At blogs like this I try to lay down the tracks of my penmonkey experiences — a trail of ink-soaked breadcrumbs not meant to demonstrate the One True Way but rather, to demonstrate one way through the dark forest of the authorial existence. I think it behooves writers to share that kind of information — to entertain, enlighten, and maybe to bring a little data to this otherwise rudderless life.

24. Kill In Their Name

Um. What? I didn't say anything. I'm definitely not, uhh, asking you guys to kill in my name and drape the corpses upon altars made of my books. Totally don't do that. That'd be aweso… awful.

25. Be A Pal, Pal

The world is a tough old bird. It's not that writers have it uniquely terrible — hell, if you believe Forbes magazine, we're some of the happiest job-having folks out there. Just the same, sometimes life throws an extra punch or two and leaves us with a bad review or a dead publishing deal or the other slings and arrows of everyday living. As such, it pays for writers to throw other writers a kind note — in short, just be a pal, pal. This writer thing we do benefits from the loose and uncertain bonds of community, but it's on us to create and confirm that community — we must be self-driven to exit our caves and put on some pants (metaphorically, because, c'mon, fuck pants) and form bonds with other penmonkeys in the name of fellowship. If we want this thing we do to survive and thrive, we do it together, not separate.

* * *

Did you know that Chuck has a small army of writing-related e-books available? Each brined in a salty spice mix of profanity, inchoate rage, and liquor? Check 'em out, won't you?

Try: CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY

$4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Or its sequel: REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

And: 250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING

$0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Or the newest: 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Blackbirds, Chapter One, Now Online

BLACKBIRDS, Chapter One: The Death of Del Amico.

Free, online, at Angry Robot Books.

That, my bubbly little word-heads, is my Christmas present to you. And by "my" Christmas present, I really mean Angry Robot's present, but hey, whatever. It's a present. You shut up.

Due out in April, you can, of course, pre-order now.

Would love to hear your thoughts, if you care to share them.

Other Stuff!

A reminder: the e-book promotion is still on where if you procure 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER, you get 250 THINGS for free. Details here: "December Is The Month Of No Mercy."

Another thing: you'll note that the Penmonkey Count is up to 627. Which means it's time again to give away some stuff to folks — I will be giving away another postcard, another t-shirt, and another writing critique. All you need to do to be entered is have procured CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY and shown me the proof of purchase (unnecessary if you bought the PDF version). I'll pick tomorrow (Tues) at around 9AM — keep an eye on the comments here for the three picks. Details here: "The Penmonkey Incitement." (Remember, once that count gets to 1000, it's time to give away another Kindle.)

Final note: the next couple weeks will be a little light here at terribleminds — you'll still find content, but the posts will be a little smaller, a little more tidbitty, at least until the end of the year.

I know. Here's a tissue. Cry it out. I won't tell anyone what you and I shared here today.

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Unexplainable Photo Challenge

Some brief administrative fol de rol:

Last week's worldbuilding challenge, wherein I exhort folks to write new myths and gospels for the invented gods and goddesses of Blackbloom is live — I will casually note that, entries so far are quite low. We need more, if possible (elsewise I'll interpret it as a sign that it's time for the worldbuilding experiment to end). Have you tried your hand, yet?

The prior week's fiction challenge — "An Affliction Of Alliteration" has plenty of entries, and is in fact why I'm being so slow to pick a winner. Reading fifty-one 1,000 word stories is like reading a short novel. In other words: holy crap. Expect an answer later today, which will be posted at that page.

Now.

This week's is a doozy.

A link that recently whirled and pirouetted its way around the Internet is this one:

50 Unexplainable Black & White Photos.

They are equal parts hilarious, absurd, abstract, disturbing, and downright creepy.

Your job is to choose one.

And write a story about that photo. In this way, you are "explaining" the "unexplainable."

Any genre. Up to 1,000 words.

You should identify the photo you're choosing both by description and by the photo's numerical identification found at that Buzzfeed link above. Post the story at your blog. Link here. Point the way.

You've got one week.

Friday, December 23rd. Day before the day before Christmas. Ain't that sweet?

Jump in, get weird, start writing. See you on the other side.

Thea Harrison: The Terribleminds Interview

Thea Harrison is one of those authors who kind of floated in and out of my periphery over social media — I didn't know her specifically, but I know folks who did and they were very excited by who she was and what she was doing. They were spot on — and I think you'll get it, too. Thea's got a new novella out, TRUE COLORS, and you'll see my image right there on the cover. No really. NO, REALLY. Check out this interview with Thea, and then scout out her website and find her on the Twitters (@theaharrison)!

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

A woman went from unemployment to hitting the USA Today Bestselling List and the New York Times extended bestseller list in two and a half years.

The facts are true, but the story isn't quite what it seems.  This journey was an amazing group effort, including a huge commitment of support by family members, an intense amount of work from a talented young literary agent, editor championship and publisher support.  Also, the woman had previous publication experience, and she had collected many rejections over the years.

Just yesterday I posted a "25 Things" list about writers and rejection. What's your take on how a writer best handles rejection?

Whew, tough question.  I have an emotional reaction to rejection.  At best it's a disappointment.  It can often sting quite badly, and sometimes I get upset.  But I keep that private.

In my opinion the very best thing a writer can do with rejection is maintain a professional demeanor in public (that means YOU, internet), keep the emotional stuff private, analyze why the rejection happened and learn from it.

Maybe the lesson is, well, you should keep your emotional reaction private.  Maybe it is something else.  If you send out three hundred and fifty queries (I made that number up) and you receive universal rejection, then it's probably a really good idea to look at the quality and content of both your query and your project.  Maybe your query needs to be torn down and rewritten.  Maybe your project does.  Maybe your project needs to go in a drawer somewhere until you can calm down and actually come up with some useful strategies for moving forward.  Maybe, oh the horrors, you need to pitch the idea entirely, and yes, I've had my share of those.

Why do you tell stories?

I have a "rich inner life," or so an acquaintance who has a PhD in psychology has told me.  Or perhaps I'm just neurotic.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Be too stupid to quit but too smart to keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Or in other words, study the craft, stop doing something if it doesn't work, implement good advice, keep writing and stay professional.

Man, that's some of the best condensed writing advice — a short sharp shock of good sense. Okay, so, let's talk mistakes. Every writer has them. What mistakes have you made as a writer that you can share?

I've made many, many mistakes.  I've held onto project ideas when I should have let them go, and I'm pretty sure I've thrown away things that had promise.  I have worked too much in solitude, and probably every piece of advice I have offered in this blog is because I did something wrong.

What's great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

The great thing about being a writer, for me, is that I have an agent who loves the weird stuff in my head and editors who have, thus far, pretty much given me free rein in the creativity department.  That's immensely satisfying, and I'm running with it as far and as fast as I can go.  Also, writers can work wherever they have a laptop, PC, tablet, typewriter or even a pen and notepad, so there's a certain amount of flexibility that other jobs don't have.

Conversely the sucky parts of writing are things that lots of people have written about before (including you in your blogs).  Every writer is going to suffer some kind of rejection.  It's the nature of the beast, and you just gotta suck it up, baby, and learn from it (re: back to the too stupid/too smart thing).  And like any self-employment venture a writer needs to be prepared to work odd, long hours to meet a deadline, and the payment schedule can be irregular.  Also, while many people might have a hand in a project—from writer, to agent, to editor, copyeditor, cover artiest, line editor, typesetter, publishing sales team, and booksellers—the writing itself is a solitary job and it's important to figure out how to balance that with social needs.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Payday.  Frequently.

To find out my favorite curse word, I just conducted some word searches in my WIP.  "Damn" is apparently my number one favorite.

Damn = 27

Fuck = 24

Hell = 15

Bitch = 8

Goddamn = 7

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don't drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

My current favorite is 667 Pinot Noir, a California wine.  It's been on sale locally for around $12.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

I'm not particularly into westerns, but despite that I've been watching and enjoying AMC's new series Hell On Wheels.  For me, the show has an interesting mix of action and historical detail, such as one character who survived Andersonville, one of the most horrendous prison camps from the American Civil War.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

None whatsoever, unless you count telling fun stories to other humans for stress relief.  If that doesn't count I'm dead meat.

You've committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

Black truffle vol-au-vents hors d'oeuvres
Lobster in its many fabulous variations
Frozen Haute Chocolate, valued at $25,000
A bottle of the world's oldest champagne , which has aged around 170 years in a shipwreck on the bottom of the ocean floor.

I figure indigestion and a possible hangover won't be an issue, and for the execution I'll wear the diamond and gold bracelet that comes with the dessert.

What's next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

The future holds lots of good stuff!  TRUE COLORS is a novella in my Elder Races series out on Tuesday December 13th, released by Samhain Publishing.

Then book four in the series, ORACLE'S MOON, will be released March 6, 2012.  I'm writing book five (untitled), which should have an autumn release in 2012, and I'm currently contracted through book six.

I also have been contracted for two dark romantic fantasies, as of yet unnamed, that are outside of the Elder Races series.  The first one is slated for release in 2013.

So, you just released a novella — do you prefer writing novels over novellas? Why the choice here to go with the shorter form?

In general I prefer writing novels, but I really like what I'm learning from working in a novella form.  I've currently got a second novella in submission with an editor.

One of the reasons why I'm exploring novella-writing is to develop a second revenue stream.  Another reason is to take the opportunity to tell stories about the alternative Earth I'm developing that don't really warrant a full length novel.  It's a bit experimental, so we'll see what happens!

How do you approach writing fantasy? What would be your advice to anybody trying to write fantasy?

My first advice is to read read read.  Read every book on fantasy you can, then read science fiction, and then read horror, thrillers, mystery, literature, and throw in a lot of nonfiction too about religion, sociology, geography, history, politics, science and probably popular culture, and anything else you can get your hands on.  Maybe take some classes too.

The reason why I write this?  All of that will make you a better writer, no matter what you write.

Author Patricia C. Wrede has developed an excellent set of questions that can help writers consider the many different elements to creating a fantasy world.  You can find the list here.

Now that I've written that I'll confess, for the first book in my Elder Races series, DRAGON BOUND, I was a "pantser," or I wrote by the seat of my pants.  I sketched in details of an alternative Earth as I wrote the book then got very lucky and was offered a three-book contract for a series.  Since the series is open-ended, the world-building for me feels a lot like one very long jazz session, and I'm building the world as I go.  It's both fun and challenging, as I'm working to stay consistent with previous stories.

Thanks so much for inviting me to be on your blog, Chuck, and thank you especially for posting during the release week for TRUE COLORS.  It's been a pleasure!