Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 58

Recipe: Mushroom Tacos

Listen, I get it. I fucking get it.

You don’t like mushrooms.

I understand this because, for a very long time, I didn’t like mushrooms either, and when people were like, “Why don’t you like mushrooms?” I’d answer them with, “I don’t like eating little human ears,” because eating a mushroom was, I felt, roughly equivalent to exactly that in texture, taste, and general slime factor. (Why would ears be slimy? I don’t know. Maybe someone found them in a river or an old tree stump. Maybe they’re goblin ears. Leave me alone.)

Of course, my distaste for mushrooms comes out of my childhood, which is also the time that history will one day call, THE EPOCH OF THE ERA OF THAT TIME WHEN PEOPLE DIDN’T KNOW HOW THE HELL TO COOK VEGETABLES TO SAVE THEIR GODDAMN LIVES. It’s only been in my life since that collectively we (we = white people, probably) figured out you didn’t have to boil everything, that you could roast veggies, or put them on a grill, or heat them fast and quick in a skillet. I hated asparagus and Brussels sprouts and all that, because everything was either boiled or steamed. Mushrooms, too, were ill-handled — usually, they came out of a can, a whole damn can of little gooey elf ears, and blech, yech, ugggh. No thank you. So, I determined way back when that I did not like mushrooms, no way, no how.

I’ve since changed on that point.

(I’ve since turned around on nearly all things I didn’t like back then. Point of trivia, the only vegetable I currently still don’t like is eggplant. And I know! I know. You’re going to tell me you have a recipe or some heirloom varietal or a magic eggplant you stole from a giant, but it won’t work. I try eggplant every couple years and I’m still NOPE I DON’T LIKE IT.)

So, mushrooms.

You’re going to like these mushrooms, I promise.

And that’s a money-back guarantee, so if you don’t like them, you can have your *opens an Excel spreadsheet, checks the ledger* zero dollars and zero cents back.

This is how you prepare the mushrooms.

Get some portobello mushrooms, which sound fancy but are just the mature form of some basic mushrooms. Now, I say portobello, but real-talk, I think this recipe is equally as good, if not a wee smidgen better, if you use shiitake mushrooms. You could use a whole variety of mushrooms for this — hen-of-the-woods are lovely and funky, chicken-of-the-woods taste like chicken, chanterelles hold up well. But you’ll have an easy time, I hope, finding portobello or shiitake, and if you don’t? BURN THE GROCERY STORE DOWN. Just burn it down. Tell them I told you it was okay.*

*do not do this, it’s not okay, put down the matches, firebug

How many mushrooms? I think for three people I used four or five caps. You’d need more if it’s shiitake, because they are smaller mushrooms. This is just science, and I learned it when I trained as a Food Scientist in Naples. Uhh, Naples, Florida, not Italy, sorry to disappoint.

Slice your mushrooms into strips.

Get a skillet or sauté pan.

Get it hot.

Temperature-hot, not sexy-hot. Though, you do you. If you wanna seduce cookware, I won’t judge you. As long as it’s consensual, I think we can agree you should get as kitchen freaky as you want.

Get some olive oil in there. Lube the pan. (Wait, this is getting sexy. Hm.)

Then, pop the mushrooms in there.

Here’s the great thing about mushrooms — you can’t really overcook them. Once they’re in the pan, give them a sprinkling of salt, and I like to use a little minced garlic in there too. The mushrooms are going to release their liquid (okay, though the phrase “RELEASE YOUR LIQUID” isn’t sexy, the idea kind of is?), and that’s fine — keep stirring, let them release the liquid, cook a lot of that liquid off. It’s okay that, like with meat, you start to think, these mushrooms are browning pretty good, because they are. Mushrooms like these are somewhat meaty, and it’s why you might wanna cook these in batches — you don’t wanna overcrowd the pan, because then you lose out on some of that yummy Maillard-slash-caramelization action going on.

Anyway, keep cooking them down until they’re brown and firm and mmm-licious.

Then, you’re going to add some liquid back into the party.

Add:

– the juice of one orange

– the juice of one lime

– the juice of one lemon

I call this THE CITRUS TRIO, which coincidentally is also the name of my super-cool daddy-o jazz trio, featuring Jeff Goldblum and Werner Herzog, and we will be playing the Sacramento Toot-Toot Club on January 7th mark your calendars.

(If the lime or lemons are weirdly huge, like large babies, then use the juice of halves, not wholes.)

Put the citrus juice in there.

Continue to cook down until the mushrooms are not wet, but saucy.

(Wow, still kinda sexy. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for it to go this way.)

That’s it.

Now you can warm up your corn tortillas and have tacos. What else you put on those tacos is entirely up to you, but for my mileage, quick-pickled onion is pretty yummy, plus a little cilantro and a smear of mashed avocado — oh and don’t forget the Cholula’s green pepper hot sauce, which is the superior hot sauce for tacos, don’t disagree with me. Also good are quick-cooked strips of green bell pepper and caramelized onions, which you will see in the image below. I mean, honestly, anything is good in a taco. Oak leaves. Actual elf ears. Whatever.

Look, here are the tacos.

THAT’S IT.

MUSHROOM TACOS.

EAT THEM.

GET SEXY WITH THEM.

GET ALL CAPS WITH THEM.

GET FUNKY WITH THE FUNGI.

And I’m out.

How To Break Into Comics: The Chuck Wendig Way!

Okay.

OKAY.

I’ve seen on Twitter the whole thing going around and around — “How do you break into comics?” and a lot of really smart people like Mags Visaggio and Ed Brisson and Chris Sebela have been answering that question. So I figure, ha ha, oh ho, I should offer up my suggestions on this particular front, clearly laying out an easy-to-follow map that is guaranteed to WIN YOU A LIFELONG COMICS CAREER.

Buckle up. Let’s get comicky. Comicy? Colicky? Whatever.

STEP ONE: Don’t forget to take a selfie and turn it into something that vaguely looks like a panel from a comics book. This isn’t really essential, but it makes you feel cool, and feeling cool is definitely a part of writing the fuck out of some fucking comics. Example, where I took a usual shitty selfie and made it look like I’m some kind of BROODING ASSASSIN WIZARD:

[image error]

STEP TWO: Write novels.

STEP TWO POINT FIVE: Have those novels published.

STEP THREE: Those novels will get the attention of someone at DC Comics and that someone says, “Hey, you should write an spec issue of Batman just to see if you’d be a good fit,” and then you write an issue in which Bruce Wayne gets cancer, which is a villain he can’t really fight, and then if I remember correctly he has to fight Anarky as Batman? Whatever.

STEP FOUR: Have DC Comics tell you, “We can’t give Batman cancer, the fuck is wrong with you?”

STEP FIVE: Know Alex Segura, who is a novelist, but also works at Archie Comics. Just know him. Know him well. Intimately. Hunt him in the night with night vision goggles to learn his habits, then ingratiate yourself into his life as a “friend.” When he has finally fallen for your ruse, it’s onto

STEP SIX: Alex will ask you to reboot an old comic called The Shield with your other good novelist friend, Adam Christopher, and you do it, and you gender-flip that shit, because why not. Then when they publish the comic they’ll put both of your last names on it, but it’ll look like one guy named CHRISTOPHER WENDIG wrote it. Anyway it’s collected, go buy it?

STEP SEVEN: Have a wonderful editor named Katie Kubert call you from Marvel, and she’ll ask you to pitch a comic. And she offers you to pitch for either a well-known comics called Agents of SHIELD or for a comic nobody probably wants called Hyperion, and you choose the latter because there’s more freedom in fringe projects (also less chance anyone is going to buy that series, but we’ll get there.) Also don’t forget to ask why they invited you to pitch in the first place. “Is it because I wrote this great comic called The Shield?” you eagerly ask and the editor answers, “What? No, it’s because I read your weird criminal underworld meets the literal monster underworld urban fantasy novel, The Blue Blazes, and I liked it.” Oh! Which reminds me, we need to rewind:

STEP TWO POINT SIX: Write a weird  criminal underworld meets the literal monster underworld urban fantasy novel called The Blue Blazes and get it published, and then when the publisher goes south, engage in a year of shenanigans to get the rights back so you can self-publish the thing and its sequel, but don’t forget to make sure that the third book will never see the light of day, thus forcing the second book to end on a really weird bummer note. Okay, jumping ahead again…

STEP EIGHT: Pitch Hyperion. Get the gig as you land and turn on your phone to go hang out at Phoenix ComicCon. Get excited. You work for Marvel now!

STEP NINE: Have Hyperion canceled the day before the first issue hits shelves. Ha ha, comics are fun, L O L. Don’t worry, it’s nothing you did, because nobody’s even read your stupid comic yet! At least you got to work with Nik Virella, who is great.

STEP TEN: Have the very fine people at Marvel Star Wars ask you to write a Star Wars comic, in particular, the adaptation of The Force Awakens, which ends up being a thing you pitch as an adaptation but is a thing that they want to be, instead, “Just take the words from the script and put them in comic book format,” which means less an adaptation and more a direct translation, but whatever, it’s cool, and you do it, because it’s fucking Star Wars, and also it’s Jordan White and Heather Antos. Don’t forget to ask why they invited you to write it in the first place. “Is it because I wrote Hyperion?” And they say, “What? No, it’s because you wrote Star Wars: Aftermath!” Oh, which reminds me, another rewind —

STEP TWO POINT SEVEN: Write a trilogy of Star Wars novels. As to how you get to do that? Well, shit, I guess I need to rewind a little bit again…

STEP TWO POINT SIXTY NINE NICE: Tweet about wanting to write a Star Wars novel.

STEP ELEVEN: Write a bunch of other comics, like Bucky Barnes in Year of Marvels (that’s right you forgot I wrote that didn’t you), and a revamp of Turok, and a cool Darth Vader annual.

STEP TWELVE: Get hired to write more Star Wars comics, whee, two more series —

STEP UNLUCKY NUMBER THIRTEEN: Congrats, now you live in a pseudo-fascist dystopian state where Donald Trump is president ha ha what that can’t happen OH YES IT FUCKING CAN, and that will make you very mad, as it should, because you’re human and not a goblin draped in human skin, so! You continue your usual pattern of rage-tweeting about the Current American Situation, like, for instance, when credible accusations of sexual assault are hand-waved away to make room for an untrustwothy Supreme Court Justice — don’t forget to do this just as you’re about to walk to New York Comic-Con for the day where they are going to loudly announce your new Darth Vader series.

STEP FOURTEEN: Get booted off those books for your vulgarity and your politics, neither of which are new, but hey. Bonus round: your being booted will be the result of a recipe of fun ingredients, including the butt-stung Comicsgate movement, a passel of right-wing clowndicks, and a glut of Twitter bots and sock-puppet accounts. Congrats, you were at the center of a miniature info-war! The future is now! And the future is really fucked up! Ha ha whee!

STEP FIFTEEN: Fuck it, go back to writing novel… and as to how you do that, well, shit, that requires us to rewind again, I guess? Time to nest a smaller map inside the larger map, HOW TO BREAK INTO PUBLISHING NOVELS:

STEP ZERO POINT FIVE: Spend a decade-plus writing freelance game design materials for pen-and-paper roleplaying games and then write five junk drawer novels and then win a screenwriting competition in the hopes of having the screenwriter help you adapt your piece-of-shit novels to the script page so you can then use the script as an outline to turn it back into a proper novel and along the way write a script with your writing partner that takes you to the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and the following year you will have a short film premiere at Sundance and eventually you’ll co-write this cool thing called Collapsus and then eventually you’ll get a become a movie producer and help produce a movie on the SyFy channel based off of your shitposting tweets with fellow novelist Sam Sykes but that’s beside the point we were talking about novels right, okay, then you get an an agent and a publishing deal and you write 20-plus novels across a variety of genres and age ranges and also this blog god, jeez, don’t forget the blog and then that podcast and uhhh

And that is how you break into comics. And novels. And movies.

A simple, easy-to-follow map.

You are welcome.

David Keck: Five Things I Learned Writing A King in Cobwebs

“A gritty, medieval fantasy full of enchantment” (Publishers Weekly), David Keck’s epic Tales of Durand trilogy concludes with A King in Cobwebs

Once a landless second son, Durand has sold his sword to both vicious and noble men and been party to appalling acts of murder as well as self-sacrificing heroism. Now the champion of the Duke of Gireth, Durand’s past has caught up with him.

The land is at the mercy of a paranoid king who has become unfit to rule. As rebellion sparks in a conquered duchy, the final bond holding back the Banished break, unleashing their nightmarish evil on the innocents of the kingdom.

In his final battle against the Banished, Durand comes face to face with the whispering darkness responsible for it all―the king in cobwebs.

* * *

Of Daughters & Day Jobs

I learned a little about writing and time while I worked but on The Tales of Durand. The final book, A King in Cobwebs, was a wee bit late — it really ought to have been published in the 1850s. And, for this inordinate delay, I would like to blame my family.

When I was an unattached, semi-employed youth, I had a special sort of time. There were whole days and evenings and weekends when time yawned like the sea and I could jump right in. If I wanted to work out ideas and build stories (or worlds) over months and months, I could do it. Magic. Now that I’m a proud parent with a real job and various responsibilities, I’ve noticed some fairly obvious things about writing in scattered fits and starts.

First, if you don’t keep nudging a story along on a nearly daily basis, the whole architecture of the thing tends to fade from the imagination. (I want to use the word “palimpsest” here, or maybe some metaphor with watercolors and drizzle, but I’d better not). When the interrupted writer returns to the work from a long break, the story has become a strange place. And it can take real time to find the blueprints and collect the tools. So, clearly, a monastic life of penury and solitude is the way forward. (Although now that I think about it, there are advantages to love and regular meals which ought to figure in the balance. You may wish to draw your own conclusions).

The Magic of the Jouster’s Armpit

The Tales of Durand is a harrowing story, but researching the books was a great fun. For me, the best finds were those telling, unexpected bits that make a person feel that the past is a real, weird, particular place you’ve never been before. They popped up everywhere. I remember reading a First World War memoir and gathering stories of mud and fleas. A crowd of school kids and I heard an old castle guide explain time (with sundials and bits of dangly jewelry). And modern day jousters? They use the internet to grumble about how a well-struck lance chews up the lancer’s armpit. How can you not collect these things?

I suppose the notion is that readers will, for a second or two, feel like they’re meeting the real people of some real place (at least as peculiar as our own).

Squashing My Orcs

There is great fun to be had in catching cliches, and I caught a few while I was working on Durand.  (I imagine every writer fights with them). If you can spot one of these terrible things — and squash it — the resulting splatter of new and interesting ideas can be immensely satisfying.

Of course, it isn’t always easy to catch the things: they will often arrive disguised in little bits of superficial creativity. I remember, as a teenage writer, feeling quite proud of the unique qualities of “my orcs”, for example. And, to this day, I keep a forest of cunningly disguised elves hiding just off camera. Fantasy is full of such temptations.

But, when you do manage to catch a cliche, what fun you can have! I’d planned a scene where my hero would ride up to a strange castle and call for the man in charge. You can picture a castle wall. Guards on top. A big gate.

Fortunately, before I tried to reupholster scene, I caught myself. What if there was no one at the castle? What if everyone has vanished? What if they’d followed their leader into the hills? It could be a pilgrimage! What sort of holy place could it be? Why would they go? In the end, I was very pleased with the little world of motivations and repercussions that popped up when the story left the well-trodden path. (There’s a scene now where a doomed father grieves a lost but once-promising son in a strange gorge of hanging rags).

Splat!

Time, Tide, and Disappearing Horses

In the future, I may write a novel set entirely in a single room.

In my favorite stories, the landscape is alive. It is its own character, and it has the power to conjure up boatloads of awe and dread and wonder. I’m thinking of the cold, claustrophobia of the Icelandic sagas; the majesty of the Tolkien’s broad spaces; Sherlock’s moors; or Shelley’s arctic wastes. It’s all good fun.

If you are going to take your readers through a few good landscapes; however, you are almost forced to put your characters on horseback and send them trotting all over creation. (This is unfortunate).

Horses are ticklish things. Anybody who knows anything about horses will tell you that nobody knows anything about horses. I gathered useful hints about personality and maintenance from guidebooks and handbooks and conversations with actual people, but no practical amount of research could ever do the job. There is a neat and frustrating divide among historians, for example, about whether a medieval charge was a galloping affair or only a grim and resolute canter full of razor sharp points.  Worse, horses have a curious tendency to disappear from the pages of a novel. During the revision process of The Tales of Durand, horses popped in and out of existence more times than I am comfortable admitting. I suspect that this is where centaurs came from.

When there’s a lot of traveling, time soon becomes a challenge as well. In The Tales of Durand, time is measured by the movements of the sun and moon. In fact, the moon has a new name each month (based on timeless cycles of the agricultural year, because it’s a fantasy novel and people expect things). Sadly, all of this created a record keeping issue. Over the course of the series, I’m not sure how many times I put two full moons in the same month, two sunsets in a single day — and I’m still not sure I understand tides.

(Thank goodness for editors. Really).

Little Actual Exploration

The seed of this trilogy was a flawed little short story about a fellow who felt miscast in the role of hero. He did the job, but he didn’t feel that he deserved the accolades. That was the idea, but I’m not sure I could have told you precisely where the story was going; the notion of the doubting hero felt like something I wanted to explore.

Three novels in, I’ve started to see more clearly where my head was. The reader meets quite a number of tortured souls in these pages, and, typically, their wounds are self-inflicted. People hang onto their guilt or doubt or anger no matter how it hurts them. And, because we’re in an enchanted world, their suffering renders them monstrous and tears at the landscape. Thankfully, by the end, some of my favorite characters are beginning to come to their senses. (They might even have a chance at happiness).

Maybe what I’m saying, in several hundred thousand words is that we should cut ourselves some slack.

And be careful with our armpits.

* * *

David Keck is a New York based writer, teacher, and cartoonist who grew up in Winnipeg, Canada.

David Keck: Portal

The Tales of Durand: Print | eBook

Arwen Elys Dayton: Five Things I Learned Writing Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful

THE FUTURE IS CURIOUS.

This novel in six parts is a look at the unlimited possibilities of biotech advances and the ethical quandaries they will provoke. Dayton shows us a near and distant future in which we will eradicate disease, extend our lifespans, and reshape the human body. The results can be heavenly—saving the life of your dying child; and horrific—the ability to modify convicts into robot slaves. Deeply thoughtful, poignant, horrifying, and action-packed, this novel is groundbreaking in both form and substance. Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful examines how far we will go to remake ourselves into the perfect human specimen, and what it means to be human at all.

* * *

Writing a novel in six parts may be easier than writing a novel in one huge part

The six sections of this book are interconnected so that I consider it one complete story. Each piece can, to some degree, stand on its own, but not fully. The six parts are necessary complements that tell, in the end, one united narrative.

And yet…

Because there were six sections, there was freedom to tackle each separately, as I would with a series of short stories. I wrote them out of order, however the whim took me, which happened to mean that I wrote the last section first and the first section last. This unintended sequence was serendipitous because A) it’s always helpful to know your ending when you write and B) and it’s much easier to write a good beginning when you already know how the rest of your story will unfold.

But it was more than writing out of order that made this book easier. There’s the mechanical factor that editing something short involves dealing with fewer “ripple effects” than editing something longer. This meant I could work on discrete chunks and not worry about the whole story for long stretches of time. This novel fits together like an extravagant domino pattern with enclaves that wouldn’t be knocked over by a general domino-pocalypse. Those enclaves were places I could work without all the other sections of the book peering over my shoulder, as it were.

I don’t know if this lesson is useful, because unless I’m planning to slice up all future stories into many distinct parts, editing this book was a surprise vacation that may never happen again.

Sometimes science fact is so amazing that you have to remind yourself why you’re writing science fiction

Writing about human genetic modification and medical advances that will allow us to rebuild ourselves and vastly extend lifespan…well it’s frankly such an enticing topic in real life that I found myself repeatedly up against the dilemma of what to include in the story. I’ve read hundreds of articles on CRISPR, growing human or human-compatible organs in livestock, advanced prosthetics, life extension, you name it. I’ve also interviewed researchers on the forefront of the science—people who are figuring out how to edit and reprogram our immune systems, for example, in order to combat or even cure diseases like HIV. Not in the distant future, but within the next few years. I mean, holy shit!

There were a days when I wanted to go back to school and study biology. And there were other days when I was absolutely certain that I needed to include some tidbit of medical reality in the book because it was so incredible.

I had to reel in my excitement about the reality and channel it into the imagined future. The medicine, the gene editing, the drastically extended lifetimes…they simply aren’t important in fiction, unless they are the context for an intensely personal story that allows you to follow a human being (or a version of a human being) that you care about. This was harder than it sounds and there are so many great ideas lying on my metaphorical cutting room floor. But they were abandoned in service of the six main characters and what mattered to them. Essentially I had to remember whose story this was—not mine but theirs.

A character will only do so much, unless…

And speaking of characters, I got to re-learn a lesson I’m taught in every book: a character will only do what she is meant to do intrinsically. If that doesn’t happen to include what you believe that character should be doing, then there are two possibilities: 1) the thing you’re asking the character to do doesn’t make a lick of sense and you should get your shit together and change things around or 2) you don’t know that character as well as you think you do.

For me, it’s 2 a surprising number of times. Trouble writing the story I see in my head frequently boils down to not having a true feel for who a character is, what made her the way she is, the formative experiences and relationships of her life, and what, if she ever took the time to think about it, would be her personal philosophy. A legal pad and nice pen and six or ten pages of backstory usually do the trick.

Sometimes it’s okay if the tail wags the dog

When I’m coming up with new ideas, I usually see the characters before I see the world they’re in. But in this book, I understood the world first. I knew I wanted to write stories that involved the genetic and medical future of humans as a race and the experience of growing up and discovering who you are when the very essence of ‘you’ is changing.

That idea wasn’t originally connected to any specific protagonists who would carry the story on their shoulders. Yet it turns out that these snippets of context were enough, and in a short time the characters began to show up to live in the house I was building. I guess the take-away here is that there are many potentially workable ways of staring at a blank page.

Write something meaningful to you, regardless of imagined commercial implications

This one is hard. As I began putting this book together, with its unusual structure and its potential for being categorized incorrectly as an anthology, I couldn’t help wondering: Who will buy this? Could a publisher get behind it or will it be too odd? Is this what I “should” be writing? Will this be a waste of a year?

I stopped asking. Or at least I tried to. Because the thing is, there aren’t valid answers to those questions until you’ve written the book. Unless your name is so huge that your publisher is going to buy whatever you pitch them, no matter how vague the idea, isn’t it better (I asked myself) to simply write the story you want to write? Then you can show people a completed novel. And it will speak for itself.

So that’s what I did. Because the simplicity is this: every publisher in every country of the world, and every reader who has ever existed, wants the same thing: a good book. That’s all. I don’t think I can write a good book if I’m writing to chase an idea of what people might want. And besides that, who wants to spend time on something that doesn’t make you want to jump out of the bed in the morning so you can get to work?

Happy writing to all of you!

* * *

ARWEN ELYS DAYTON is the best-selling author of the Egyptian sci-fi thriller Resurrection and the near-future Seeker Series, set in Scotland and Hong Kong. She spends months doing research for her stories. Her explorations have taken her around the world to places like the Great Pyramid at Giza, Hong Kong and its islands, the Baltic Sea. Arwen lives with her husband and their three children on West Coast of the United States. You can visit her and learn more about her books at arwendayton.com and follow @arwenelysdayton on Instagram and Facebook.

Arwen Elys Dayton: Website | Twitter

Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful: Print | eBook

Macro Monday Will Make It Quick

Some quicky bits —

A bunch of my eBooks just popped up for sale, I believe going for the whole duration of December. Those titles include all my Skyscape-pubbed YA books:

Under the Empyrean Sky (Heartland 1)

Blightborn (Heartland 2)

The Harvest (Heartland 3)

Atlanta Burns

Atlanta Burns: The Hunt

They’re all a buck a pop. (Well, $0.99.)

The Heartland series is a Steinbeckian Star Wars riff, and Atlanta Burns is a dark teen noir with, honestly, a bunch of trigger warnings in tow. Both series are ostensibly about sticking it to rich people, to be honest.

The audio looks like it’s on sale for each, too, for $1.99.

Also it looks like my run on Turok is collected for $3.99 if you so desire it.

And I think that might be all the news that’s fit to print.

HAVE SOME MACRO PHOTOS.

First is a… well, a stick. It’s just a stick. And it has snow on it. But the glow of the morning light and the shallow depth of frame gives it kind of a magical vibe.

Second is broccoli.

Yep, broccoli.

Wet broccoli, in fact.

Point of trivia: Wet Broccoli was my nickname in the CIA.

Enjoy!

Friday Newspoop!

Hello! It is Friday. What happens on Friday? Oh, I dunno, maybe a hot fresh bucket of NEWS-FLAVORED NEWS NIBBLINGS, coming right atcha. Nothing particularly revelatory today, but just the same, buckle up —

And let’s ride.

1. New episode of Ragnatalk, featuring Max Temkin of CAH. Wait, what’s that? You’re not yet listening to Chuck & Anthony: Ragnatalk? Well, fix your shit and come correct.

2. If you wanted a terribleminds mug, like this Art Harder one, they are currently 40% off today (11/30) with code CYBRWEEKZAZZ. Or, I dunno, other mugs! And don’t forget the Gifts for Writers 2018 post is live in case you’re a penmonkey in need of gifts or a non-penmonkey in need of gifts for a penmonkey. Writers need love, too, is what I’m saying.

3. The collection of Star Wars short fiction, From A Certain Point of View, is $2.99 today for your ELECTRIZZIC BOOKENMACHINE or whatever, so go have it. It’s a series of stories based on many of the lesser characters from A New Hope, and my story is about the cantina barkeep, Wuher.

4. Invasive is $3.99 in eBook. Why? Because reasons!

5. Do not forget you can get in a preorder of a signed copy of the limited release hardcover of Death & Honey, which contains three novellas — one by me, one by Kevin Hearne, one by Delilah S. Dawson, cover by the inimitable Galen Dara. But but but, you can also preorder the eBook now  — $5.99 gets you that, and soon we’ll have audio up for pre-order, to boot.

AND THAT IS IT.

GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, WEIRDOS.

*sprays you with a spray bottle*

First The Why, Now The How: 25 Ways To Keep Making Stuff

And now, a more practical followup to last week’s post / tweet thread — note that this post, like last week’s, started on Twitter, chockablock with many animated GIFs. So if that’s a thing you want to behold, you gotta check it out over yonder Twitter hills.

* * *

IN THIS WACK-ASS YEAR OF 2018…

IN THIS AGE OF AEROSOLIZED FASCISM THAT WE ARE ALL HUFFING…

IN THIS INGLORIOUS CYCLE OF HORSESHIT NEWS FIREHOSED INTO YOUR FACEHOLES…

Not why, but HOW do we keep on Making Cool Stuff?

1. WRITE YOUR ANGER. SING YOUR RESISTANCE. PAINT YOUR PANTS-CRAPPING RAGE wait okay maybe less evocative than “pants-crapping,” but you get my point. Shove your feelings not into a box, but into the work. Where it can be seen.

2. Stop poking the broken tooth that is BAD NEWS. Yep, yes, you need to be aware of all the shitnanigans going on in the world, but you also don’t have to swim in it. Get clear of it. Create first, dunk your head in the HELL TOILET later.

3. Learn to FORGIVE YOUR OWN ASS. Forgiveness starts at home. You might create less in this turbid, turbulent era, and that’s okay. Keep moving forward. Embrace momentum. Sometimes it’s a game of inches, not miles.

4. Cleave to routine! When in doubt, routine for me is like a ladder. I can plant my feet and grab a rung and cling there as the world churns around me. And when I find a calm moment, I can climb up, one fucking rung at a time.

5. If you’re starting to figure out that SELF-CARE is a theme here, that’s because it is. Another method of self-care? Eating right. Sure, sometimes you want to die inside a gallon of ice cream, but a lot of the time, try to eat healthily. Healthy body, healthy mind, healthy output of work.

6. Also though it’s okay to eat the fucking ice cream once in a while because the world is cuckoo bananapants and if you’re happy, it’ll be easier to MAKE COOL STUFF.

7. Exercise. I’m not saying you need to be one of those ULTRAMARATHONERS whose nipples are flensed into little bloody quarters – but get that blood moving. Blood carries ideas from your heart to your brain to your fingers. HASHTAG SCIENCE.

8. Also important to practice care for others. Do well by the world. You might feel your work is a distraction (it isn’t!) but you can assuage it by taking positive steps: donate to charity! Food kitchen work! Work for a political campaign!

9. Read history. It helps. It’s not that the arc of history bends toward justice, necessarily – but humans have a history of forcibly bending it back toward justice when they decide to. Bonus: history is instructive for art and writing. History is a story!

10. Have a secondary hobby. Something that has no pressure associated with it. Something that is not current events-related. Also not related to your other STUFF-MAKING. Photography! Robotics! Interpretive dance! Heinous occult summonings! Be distracted! Work new intellectual muscles.

11. Be optimistic. This might be the hardest thing on this list. It may cause your sphincter to clench hard enough your butthole could snap a broomstick. But optimism is resistance. Especially optimism where you are engaged in enforcing it upon the world.

12. Also, be advised: this current kidney-stab bad news era is likely to trigger all kinds of anxiety and depression. It’s super-hard, but forgive yourself for that, and try to find treatment to address it. It’s not about “fixing” it – but it’ll be easier to make stuff if you’re working on it.

13. Consume art in greater quantities than before. UP YOUR INTAKE OF CREATIVE GOODNESS. In every goddamn direction you can find. Guzzle it! Gorge yourself upon it! Doesn’t have to be the same kinda stuff you make – and better if it’s unrelated to current events.

14. Travel. Anywhere. Seriously, anywhere. Two towns over. One state up. Other side of the country. A subterranean villain’s lair in New Zealand. Whatever. It opens your brain, and lets you escape, and lets you see how other people live.

15. Meet other artists. Online if you must, in meatspace if you can. (Mmm. Meatspace. Also: meetspace?) It’s good to find other likeminded weirdos to remind you: you’re not alone; this shit really isn’t normal; making stuff is cool and also hard.

16. Go to a bookstore. Even if you’re not a writer, just go to a bookstore. Or a library. SHUT UP THOSE PLACES ARE SACRED PLACES AND BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS ARE MAGICAL IMAGINATION SHEPHERDS.

17. Enjoy nature. It has nothing to do with creativity or making stuff, but it can be reinvigorating. Go look at a fucking bird. Smell a tree. Get out of your house and your head.

18. Make stuff first. Look upon the world second. This will be different for everyone, so YMMV, but for me, it helps to devote time to making stuff BEFORE I go swimming in the Turd River that is the Trump Era.

19. Also at least once per day, yell FUCK TRUMP at an ugly sock. It doesn’t really help you make stuff, but it’ll feel better. Feel free to make up new insults for him. F’rex: YOU OLEAGINOUS SACK OF RANCID RACIST MONKEY LARD. See? Creativity!

20. listen, kid, have you tried coffee

21. listen, kid, have you tried various unguents and balms and magical greases, I got a guy who will get you some enchanted elk bezoar, or a wizard-toe, or even just some really high-quality lavender hand lotion

22. Repeat after me: it’s not your job to fix it, shit’s been broken before and shit’ll get broken again, art still needs arting, stories need telling, stuff needs making.

23. Meditation. Therapy. Podcasts. ASMR. CBD Oil. Seriously, find something that works to just chill you the fuck out for a little while every day. Code it into your daily programming.

24. Remember that whatever you’re making will make The Worst People mad, and that is precious fuel, indeed. YOU’RE LIKE A CREATIVE VIGILANTE

25. Try to help other people make stuff, because helping other people make stuff helps you make stuff too.

And that’s it.

Buy my books or I die in a lightless oubliette of my own making.

* * *

[image error]

DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Indiebound  /  Amazon  /  B&N

Julie Hutchings: Five Things I Learned Writing The Harpy

[image error]Charity Blake survived a nightmare.

Now she is one.

Punk-rock runaway Charity Blake becomes a Harpy at night—a treacherous mythical monster who preys upon men just like the ones who abused her. Struggling through an endless stream of crappy coffee shop jobs, revolted stares, and self-isolation during the day, Charity longs to turn into the beast at night. Doing the right thing in all the wrong ways suits her.

But a Harpy’s life belongs in Hell—the gruesome Wood of Suicides, where the Harpy queen offers Charity just what she’s looking for: a home where she can reign supreme and leave behind the agony of her past. The choice to stay in Hell would be easy, were it not for a rock-and-roll neighbor who loves her for the woman she is—even when he discovers the creature she becomes—and unexpected new friends with their own deranged pasts and desires who see Charity as their savior. But salvation isn’t in the cards for Charity. Not when her friends see through her vicious attitude and fall in love with her power as the Harpy. 

Struggling between the life of an injured outcast and the grizzly champion of a blood-red hellscape, Charity must thwart her friends’ craving for her power enough to fear her corruption—and determine once and for all where her salvation lies: in eternal revenge or mortal love.

* * *

Shying away from the real horror is SHY and shy is stupid when writing horror or anything else.

The blood, the viscera, that’s all the safe part. Even the sometime setting of Dante’s Wood of Suicides in THE HARPY—which, I mean, wow—is partly safe. I mean, you’ve probably not been there. You’ve probably not been gored by a bird broad. The real horror in writing this book was knowing that some of my readers were runaways, were abused, were scarred in every way they could be. I pushed boundaries writing this book at all, but there were points when I asked myself should I? So many people will wince at Charity’s past and what’s leaked into her present. Is it too much? Yes, it is. It most definitely is. The horror in this book is in what Charity’s past has made her think of herself, what it’s done to her mind, her heart and soul. And that’s a horror that shouldn’t be shied away from, specifically because it is real. Exploring that, knowing the emotional flaying it will cause for some scares the smoke out of me for a multitude of reasons. But I want to be the kind of creator that is afraid of what I create. I want it to open doors that have been closed too long, to pull the skin slowly when the Band-aid comes off, for the novacaine to wear off just a little too soon… I want it not to just terrify, but to make me feel. I want that for my readers.

“Too cerebral” means “too stupid” and I refuse to believe that of my readers.

Though it’s fun, THE HARPY isn’t light reading. To make it surface would be disrespectful of the subjects it treats and it’s not the way I write. I didn’t get a college degree in English to not overcomplicate shit. I’m also a grand-standing advocate of giving kids books beyond their age group if they want them, because they want them. How do we learn if we don’t challenge ourselves? And what gives anyone the right to say who’s smart enough to take interest in any book? The interest alone says the reader is smart enough. When THE HARPY was rejected by one editor for being “too cerebral” after having been pitched to many by my agent, I knew it was time to change my publishing path. I will not now or ever dumb down my work because someone else thinks it’s too involved. If a reader doesn’t get it and wants to? They’ll read it again. They’ll dig deeper. Hopefully it will inspire them, teach them something new about themselves. Maybe it won’t work, but hell, I will not shallow-fy myself in any way because The Man or any man tells me to. Which leads me to…

There is no definition of “strong female character” because there is no end to the list of fights we fight.

Ah, the old “strong female character.” As though women are these amoeba-like crybaby gelatin molds that speak, and the examples of ones that can stand on their own should be pointed out. The strong female character needs to be defined by how much ass she can kick. She doesn’t need to be AMAZING. Charity has horrible self-esteem, does plenty to kick her own ass psychologically and physically. But not thinking she’s SUPER FUCKING AWESOME DOES NOT MAKE HER INTRINSICALLY WEAK. She can call herself a dirty Hell-whore, but you can’t. Is it self-demeaning, self-flagellating, unhealthy as fuck? Yes. But she faces this vision of herself head-on. This is how she feels, and she won’t hide it. Charity fights back just by getting out of bed every day. Her choices once she rolls out of bed suck. But she makes them, and she defends them. She’s a bastard on the outside to almost everyone she meets, and she’s afraid but she’ll never show it, and she’s hurt and lonely and thinks she doesn’t deserve any kind of happiness—but she keeps going. Day in, day out. That’s strength. Those of us who fight every day whether we lose more often than not, who are exhausted by existence for All the Reasons, who keep going though sometimes it might feel easier not to—that’s a hero. Charity’s acknowledgement of her dark and uglies, showing them to you whether you want to see them or not, that’s what makes her honest, and that hideous honesty is a type of strength that can’t be denied. Strength isn’t always what it looks like. Who she is isn’t up to you.

“Anti-hero” is still a label, and a real anti-hero doesn’t care what you think.

I love an anti-hero. Long live the anti-hero. But this character… This book isn’t about a hero or an anti-hero as much as it is about a woman. A woman who doesn’t need to be quirky and cute, thoughtful and kind. She can be Batman but more bitter. She can be the Crow but funnier. She can be Hannibal Lecter-esque with a sticky lipstick smile. She doesn’t have to be a nice girl, feminine or not feminine; she doesn’t have to be a rough and tumble, bitingly sarcastic bitch either. IT’S ENOUGH THAT SHE JUST IS. Like anyone who feels hopelessly beaten, she’s thrilled at the idea of release, of escape, of revenge, of winning something. Giving in to it doesn’t make her a weak woman, or a villain, or a hero. She’s a monster, but she’s human. Heroes, and women for that matter, can want revenge and still be called heroes. And she certainly doesn’t have to be everyone’s hero. She does right in the wrong ways though it doesn’t necessarily help her. And it’s not selfless. I think I like that I’m not quick to label her because she’s more than one thing. Aren’t we all? What matters is that she’s somebody, and someone who is ever-changing. Not a straight-shot change, either, but one with a lot of back-tracking and bumps and falls. If I had to say one way or the other, yes, I would say Charity is an anti-hero. But she would tell you to fuck off for asking.

Once again, there is no right way to write a book.

This is not a new statement, but it’s one that bears repeating. There are no rules to writing. I write because the rules don’t work for me. I make the rules and break my own rules pretty quickly. To write something brand new, I had to try something brand new, something I didn’t even know was possible. I can’t believe how smoothly it worked out. I say that, but it wasn’t luck either: I know what makes my writing mine, and I stuck to it; a tether to keep myself firmly in my world. First, I twisted mythology to my own devices. Second, I made the book scary on the outside, pretty on the inside. Third, I made sure that nobody else could tell this story but Charity Blake. But the weird thing I tried? I took a concept that I hold dearly and I stripped it naked. I live and breathe by the idea of building a room around a piece of art. Don’t buy the painting to match the couch; find the art you love and get the couch to go with it. The rug to go with the couch, etc… For THE HARPY I started with one sentence that came to me—I swallowed a Hell splinter—and I made it a chapter title. Who would say it? What would make her say such a thing? And what is the lie that she believes?  I built a book that way. I shaped the story around the chapter titles I created. Of course, I did all the other stuff to make a book into a wonderful thing, but this was my strategy, and it was refreshing and fun and allowed me to explore words and concepts in a way that I would never have thought of in my usual context. So, you know—try stuff. Rebel against what you know. I like to say make your passion matter, it’s kinda my slogan. What I learned from writing THE HARPY is to make your passion bigger, different, moving. Be a mad scientist with your work and you’ll get something unexpected. And don’t be afraid of the scary stuff.

* * *

Julie’s a mythology-twisting, pizza-hoarding karate-kicker who left her ten-year panty peddling career to devote all her time to writing. She is the author of Running Home, Running Away, The Wind Between Worlds, and now, The Harpy. Julie revels in all things Buffy, Marvel, robots, and drinks more coffee than Juan Valdez and his donkey combined, if that donkey is allowed to drink coffee. Julie lives in Plymouth, MA, constantly awaiting thunderstorms with her wildly supportive husband, two magnificent boys, and a reptile army.

Julie Hutchings: Website

The Harpy: Print | eBook

Gifts For Writers 2018

ONCE AGAIN, THE HOLIDAYS ARE UPON US. And once again the non-writers are wondering, hey, what the sweet hot hell do I get a writer for these gift-giving days? Writers, after all, are a squirrelly lot. What do they need? A box of ideas? Infinite pens? A little Chuck Wendig homunculus who perches on their shoulder and shrieks at them to write, write, write you slugabed motherfucker, write?

Surely we can come up with better ideas than those.

(Plus, we’re all sold out of the Wendig Homunculi.)

And so here, my friends, is the GIFTS FOR WRITERS, 2018.

*poses on fist with a serious look in a proper author photo*

Utter Shamelessness, Don’t You Judge Me

Did you know I wrote a book? It’s called Damn Fine Story and it’s amazing okay I don’t know that it’s amazing, but I was told to project confidence, so here we are. More seriously, the goal of the book is to help you understand the fiddly, tinkery, tinkly bits of storytelling. It isn’t a book about writing, but about storytelling in all its forms. And it contains a sassy, masturbatory elk. No other book has that. This is a value. Get it in print or eBook. And now, audio!

[image error]Also, surely you need a mug.

Everyone needs a mug.

You can put all kinds of things in a mug.

Whiskey. Coffee. Whiskey and coffee. Ice cream. The soul of a cherished foe.

The Art Harder, Motherfucker mug is a popular choice.

Or Certified Penmonkey.

Or The Secret To Writing.

[Note too on the mugs: coupon code CYBRWEEKZAZZ gets you 40% off. And now that I read that I’m pretty sure that says CYBER WEEK ASS except AZZ for ASS because that’s maybe how a robot would say it? A cyber robot? Hm.]

Shamelessness is now over. Onward, we go.

Best Made

My very good friend Aaron Mahnke turned me on (imagine if I just put a period there and left the sentence) to Best Made Company, which offers some very cool things, like, for instance, this bad-ass Field Desk. It’s also, um, just shy of two thousand dollars? So, this is definitely one for you one-percenters out there. But it’s so damn sexy, and the writer in your life will love you forever.

Okay fine, they have other cool stuff, too —

Like this tactical embassy pen!

And if you still dig the idea of a portable writing desk but don’t wanna shell out two grand, maybe two hundred will do you a little better — this one is significantly cheaper, but still does the trick.

And if you just want a cheap-ass pen to get for an author’s stocking stuffer: this little 3/1 (three colors, one pencil) jobby gets you maximum value, and it’s great for a writer as they’re doing edits — you got red, blue, black, and a pencil point for various purposes, like crossing stuff out, adding new bits, or just screaming profanity in the margins.

We Don’t Need Notebooks, But Okay Maybe What About This One?

Jesus Christ on a crumbcake, writers receive wayyyyy too many notebooks for the gift-giving holidays. We don’t need more. Stop getting us more. Except — except —

I really like this notebook.

Here is why I like this notebook:

It’s like how we wrote stories in grade school! You get the text portion below, but you also get a glorious imagination window at the top, which can be a drawing or a doodle or some mind-mapping or a character portrait or whatfuckingever you wanna put there.

Baron Fig also has cool desk pads.

Nick Offerman

Okay, no, you sadly cannot give Nick Offerman as a gift.

If you could, I would already have him, you bastards.

But! You can give a piece of him. Sorta. By which I mean —

Gear from Offerman’s Woodshop!

Consider: this cool interactive art piece. A writer often needs to fiddle with things at their desk to work off nervous energy and parse difficult story snidbits, so try that. Or, a cool pen-and-pencil holder. For a bonus: both of these count as (snicker, tee-hee) writer’s blocks. Get it! Like writer’s block?

*stares*

Shut up.

Also, there’s his book, Paddle Your Own Canoe, which is not really at all about writing but is, in its own way, very much about writing — about the struggle to Art Harder and in your own way. Worth getting for a writer pal. Check it in print or eBook.

Storytelling Games

I have long relied upon games to kind of loosen up the ol’ BRAIN GRAVEL, kicking it into scree with the help of fun imagination exercises.

You may find some joy from:

Once Upon A Time!

Story Slam!

The Awkward Storyteller!

Or, John August’s new one, AlphaBirds, which is kind of a fast-paced, Scrabble-esque card game.

Self-Care, Motherfuckers

Writers are not good at self-care.

So you need to sometimes give us a little nudge.

Consider: a light therapy (SAD) lamp.

Consider: a weighted blanket. (Pro-tip, start at 15 lbs.)

Also: just force us to go somewhere with you. A meal. A small trip. Anything. Get us out of the house and out of our heads. It’s a win for everybody.

Also: Caffeine, Motherfucker, Do You Speak It

Not every writer dunks themselves in a caffeinated bacta tank every morning, but I figure a good number of us enjoy a cup or twelve, so coffee and tea ain’t the worst way to go when finding a good gift for a writer buddy. Tonx, which I used to love before they got bought by the execrable Blue Bottle, has a new service out called YES PLZ COFFEE, which is a subscription dealy-o. Then there’s Trade Coffee, which is kind of a roaster aggregator — lets you discover new roasters. I currently use and enjoy the hell out of Angel’s Cup — a subscription which sends you four blind bags of coffee and then you open them and try them and it’s like a CAROUSEL OF COFFEE DELICIOUSNESS every week or two, and you get to be surprised every time.

And oh, for teas?

I like T2 Tea, but Passenger Coffee in Lancaster, PA is now doing great tea options, too.

Fill Their Brains With Information

I am never not a fan of great non-fiction.

It is arguably a thing I read now more than I do fiction — in part because I’m always doing research, and in part because non-fiction gives me new ideas, but fiction gives me someone else’s ideas.

Here’s a book I just read that I loved:

Robbing the Bees, by Holley Bishop. It’s a story about beekeeping and, in particular, honey. The history of it! The current practice of it! It’s a delight. Check it in print or eBook.

Or what about Myke Cole’s Legion Versus Phalanx? (Print, eBook.)

See also: anything by Maryn McKenna or Carl Zimmer.

And you also have the option of buying classes for your penmonkey buddies. MasterClasses are available, including a new one from Margaret Atwood, who is of course your queen and wisely, you will kneel. I SAID KNEEL, RAPSCALLION.

Buy Their Books, Leave Reviews

There may be no greater gift than that, I think: buy their stories, and leave reviews. Tell your friends, tell your enemies. Help us climb out of the oubliette of obscurity. For instance (puts self-promotional top hat back on) did you know I ALSO WRITE BOOKS and you can find them IN PRINT and IN THE ELEMTRAMIC BOOK DEVICES, yep, wow, whoa. It’s true, it’s true, I heard it from the newsie on the street corner, extree, extree, read all the fuck about it.

For a bonus: buy them a session with a portrait photographer for a proper author photo.

Previous Lists From Former Authorial Eras

If you wanna check older lists, here are links to 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014.

And that’s it.

I hope I’ve helped you help a writer. Happy holidays, word-nerds.

Macro Monday Is The Weirdest Heirloom Apple Yet

AHOY-HOY, FRANDOS. It is I, the King-of-Town! I come to deliver unto you a great bevy of news with the tolling of my bell, cla-clang, cla-clang. Or something.

First of all, fuck Mondays, right? Especially fuck the Monday after a holiday.

Okay, moving on.

Some buzzy news bits to hug and squeeze —

First, I got these:

The first official ARCs / AREs (Advanced Reader Copies/Editions) of Wanderers. Holy shit, it’s real! The product of a whole lotta work is coming to fruition — 800 pages of it, though still not in your hands until July, I’m afraid.

Also, an author I quite admire (seriously, her Book of M was so good, check it out in print or eBook), Peng Shepherd, had some very nice things to say about the book. She said, in a tweet, that “WANDERERS is a masterpiece, & you want it in your hands the second it comes out.” And Delilah S. Dawson, another writer I deeply admire and one I count as a most excellent friend, said the book makes her jealous, and for a writer, that’s high compliment indeed. Honestly, both Shepherd and Dawson make me jealous.

If you wanna preorder Wanderers in print, then the best place to do so is at your favorite local indie bookstore — which you can always find via Indiebound. Also worth reminding that many, even most, indie stores will ship right to you. If you wanna pre-order eBook, got you covered there, too. And you can add it at Goodreads.

Let’s see. What else?

You are listening to Ragnatalk, right? This past week Anthony and I had special guest Trin Garritano, who reminds us that Thor: Ragnarok is the most bisexual movie ever, and there’s a reason it’s called the Bi-Frost and not the Straight-Frost. Go listen! Or be haunted by three spirits!

In personal news, we put up our Christmas tree. Apparently this, by some metrics, is early? We always try to do it the weekend after Thanksgiving.

WHATEVER, WE’RE JUST FESTIVE AS FUCK OVER HERE.

*barfs tinsel*

Aaaaaanyway, here are some photos of heirloom apples in macro — don’t forget to check out my #heirloomapplereview thread, which has now reached its dread conclusion after, uhh, 170-some tweets? Wow, I might have a problem. In need of an apple intervention.

Have a great week, weirdos.