Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 137

Threats and Bullying

You may have noticed that I haven’t been quite as active online lately. (Some of you may be grateful for this, and to you I say Pbbt!!!) My mother commented that it looked like I had won a Hugo and then said, “Well, that was fun. Time to move on to something new.”

The recent sparsity has actually been due to several issues.

My wife suffered a bulging and torn disk in her spine a few weeks back, and we’re still dealing with that.
I was promoted to manager of my team at work, which is a good thing, but eats up more mental energy, so there’s less left over at the end of the day.
I’m trying to get through as much of Codex Born as I can this month, meaning what time and energy I do have in the evenings and weekends tends to go to the book first.

While I have no intention of stopping the blog, I don’t know exactly when I’ll get back to a more regular schedule.

With that said, I wanted to follow up on some things from a week or so back, when I blogged about Ann Crispin’s situation with Ridan Publishing and threatened to “drop the entire fucking internet” on Robin Sullivan’s head if they didn’t fix this. While a lot of people were supportive, others were uncomfortable with what they saw as me crossing the line into threats and bullying.

It was most definitely a threat, and threats are unpleasant, yes. But sometimes they’re a clear and necessary statement of consequences:

“If your dog gets loose and snaps at my kid again, I’m calling the pound.”
“Grab my ass one more time, and I’ll have you thrown out of this convention on yours.”
“Keep running up obscene texting charges, and I’ll take your phone away.”

I think what crosses the line is when the threat is unnecessary, or the consequence is disproportionate to what’s going on.

“Throw my newspaper in the bushes again, and I’ll bulldoze your freaking house, then set your armpit hair on fire with a propane torch!”

Was my threat to drop the internet on Sullivan’s head disproportionate to what she had done, or hadn’t done, in this case? I think that depends on how you understood the threat. Because while my plan was simply to use every connection I had to shine the light of shame and bad publicity on her inaction, that’s not the only interpretation for “dropping the internet” on someone. I’ve seen internet criticism get out of hand, turning into an all-out mob of harassment and insults and threats of bodily harm, even when the intent or underlying cause might seem just.

If you thought that was what I was threatening to do, then I agree it’s completely unacceptable. And while that wasn’t my intention, it’s my responsibility for not communicating more clearly.

Then there’s the accusation that I was bullying Sullivan. This came from someone I respect and consider a friend, so I spent a lot of time thinking about it and talking it over with a few people I trust.

I do see what my friend was saying, that I reminded them of a schoolyard bully threatening to round up my gang and pound the snot out of you after school. And I did threaten to bring “my gang” into it.1

I’m not seeing it as bullying, though. Some of that may be defensiveness on my part. I don’t think of myself as a bully, and certainly don’t want to see myself that way. But having spent a lot of time on the receiving end of the bully equation, it doesn’t feel like the same thing. Bullying is all about the pleasure and the power and the torment. To me, the situation with Ridan feels more like a gang getting together to threaten the bully if he (or she) doesn’t stop tormenting and hurting someone else.

Or maybe I’m just trying to rationalize my actions. And it would be easy to point to the results as justification. Robin Sullivan apologized and even thanked me for “rightfully reading [her] the riot act.” Crispin got a phone call less than 24 hours after my blog post, and had her money within 48. I feel good about that. But I don’t automatically buy the ends-justify-the-means excuse, and I wonder if I could have accomplished the same thing with a less pointed post. Being overtired and angry, did I jump straight to the nuclear option when I didn’t need to?

In this case, when Ridan had not responded to so many of Ann Crispin’s calm and professional attempts to resolve the situation, maybe the threat was necessary. Maybe a calmer post wouldn’t have worked. Or maybe it would have. There’s no way to know.

What I do know is that I don’t like being that guy. I don’t like being that angry, and I’m not all that fond of intense confrontation.

I also know it’s something I’d be willing to do again, if necessary. But I think I need to take a little more time to think about whether or not it’s necessary, and if so, to be more clear in my writing.

I am pleased with and proud of the outcome, but I also appreciate those of you who told me you were uncomfortable with my tactics. Thank you.

—



I now have an image of a bunch of middle-aged SF/F writers in leather jackets doing the snapping routine from West Side Story. ↩

LEGO Kids Fest

Saturday, I took the kids to the LEGO Kids Fest in Novi. Purely for them, you understand. I was just being a good father, dutifully spending four and a half hours in a convention center full of models and hands-on displays and games and more. Because that’s just the kind of Dad I am!

It also gave me the chance to teach some Vital Life Lessons, like the proper technique for staking LEGO vampires.

We got to see the Important Cultural and Historical Figures of Our Time.

My son Jackson found a new role model.

And then there was this glimpse of Child Heaven…

All in all, a most Educational Experience for everyone.

I’ve got a few more pics, and larger versions of these, on my Flickr site.

When the Writing Isn’t Fun

A commenter raised an interesting point when I talked about my October plan last week. (Short version - life has been more stressful than usual, and the new book is requiring a lot more work, so I’m buckling down and trying to finish this draft by November 2.)

I’m paraphrasing the comment, but he basically pointed out that if writing isn’t fun anymore, if it’s adding to my stress instead of helping me to relax, maybe that’s a sign that I should stop. (I’ll note that he said he didn’t want me to stop writing; but he was thinking about my mental/emotional well-being, which I appreciate.)

It’s a valid question. If writing had become nothing but a chore, I’d give serious consideration to quitting after I filled this contract. I’ve left jobs before when it got to the point where I pretty much dreaded going to work each day.

And for me, writing is a job. It’s a job I love, but it’s also a lot of work. There are good days and bad. If I spend my lunch hour stuck on a scene, making little progress and feeling like I’ve utterly lost control of the story, it can ruin my entire day. On the other hand, the days when I feel good about what I’ve written, well, that’s a high like nothing else.

But even on the good days, it’s still work.1 Not just the putting-words-on-paper part. There’s answering emails from fans, fellow writers, my editor, and my agent. There’s conventions and booksignings and other events. There’s poking around online for mention of my books. (You can laugh, but this is how I discovered The Legend of Jig Dragonslayer was going to be available through the Science Fiction Book Club.)

Oh … um … by the way, The Legend of Jig Dragonslayer is available through the Science Fiction Book Club!!!

Now, where was I?2

Thinking about my life as a writer reminds me of something that came up in karate, talking about how some students quit when they decide it’s not fun anymore. That’s certainly a valid choice. But the thing is, whether it’s writing or karate, the path isn’t a smooth, steady climb. Sometimes you stumble. Sometimes you get stuck. There will come a time where if you want to get better, you’re going to have to fall down. You may get hurt. You may swear a lot and kick holes in the drywall.3 And at times, it may not much fun.

Sometimes it’s not worth it. Either the climb is too hard, or you just don’t have the energy. That’s okay. Nobody can do everything, and you’ll destroy yourself if you try.

But I love being a writer. I love creating stories. And I want to get better at it. Looking over the past 17 years, this journey has been one of the hardest, bumpiest things I’ve ever done. It has, at times, been incredibly depressing and frustrating. But it’s also been one of the most rewarding journeys, and while it may not always be fun, and it is at times a lot of work, it’s work I choose to do.

The fact that the writing is now a significant portion of our household income certainly doesn’t hurt matters, either.

In a lot of ways, life would be easier and less stressful if I stopped writing. It might even be more fun, as it would free up time and energy for other things.

But I love writing, and I love being a writer. And for me, it’s worth it.

—



Sure, a decade ago I would have killed to have this kind of work. That doesn’t change the fact that it eats up a lot of time and energy. ↩
If your first thought was Australia, you get five bonus points. ↩
I’ve only done that once, and it was a long time ago. ↩

Ann Crispin Update

From Ann Crispin’s Facebook page yesterday:

[T]he StarBridge books available for sale as e-books on Amazon, B&N, and Kobo.com have now been transferred back to me and my collaborators … Ridan cooperated on sending us the files, and we have confirmed that royalty payments have been paid. Ridan has NOT removed the books from its website yet; do not purchase my books there or on iTunes, where, for technical reasons, there is difficulty transferring the titles.

When I clicked on one of Crispin’s titles on the Ridan site, I get the following message:

This title has been transferred to A.C. Crispin…

So it looks like Ridan is working on that as well.

What this means is that you can now purchase the Starbridge books on Amazon, B&N, and Kobo, and all proceeds will go directly to Ann and her collaborators.

Ridan is also working to convert the 6th and 7th Starbridge books to e-books, and will be turning those over to Ann as well, so those should hopefully be available soon. (The 6th popped up on Amazon as I was putting this blog post together — yay!)

While I’m still angry over the problems Crispin has had to deal with over the past year, I’m very pleased to see them being resolved.

I first discovered the  Starbridge series years ago. Starbridge was a story of first contact, one which captured the wonder and danger and excitement of discovering alien life. (I still remember loving “Doctor Blanket.”) The books were YA-friendly, and while there was plenty of conflict, the overall feeling was one of hope and optimism.

I would encourage those of you who haven’t already done so to check them out.

Starbridge (Book 1) [Amazon | B&N | Kobo]
Silent Dances (Book 2) [Amazon | B&N | Kobo]
Shadow World (Book 3) [Amazon | B&N | Kobo]
Serpent’s Gift (Book 4) [Amazon | B&N | Kobo]
Silent Songs (Book 5) [Amazon | B&N | Kobo]
Ancestor’s World (Book 6) [Amazon]

I know there are questions about Ridan’s other authors, as well as some mixed feelings about my own tactics in addressing this problem, and I plan to talk more about that later. But for now, I wanted to share the good news and link to Ann’s books for those of you who said you were eager to get your copies.

Codex Born Progress:

Patrick Weekes on Video Game Writing

Patrick Weekes’ first novel The Palace Job [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] came out two weeks ago. (And I would have had this post up then, if not for the fact that … um … okay, I got nothing. Apparently I just suck at getting things done on time lately.)

Anyway, not only does Weekes have both a novel and short fiction credits to his name, but he’s also done a lot of video game writing. I asked him if he would talk about how he got into video game writing, and the difference between writing a novel and writing a game.

Getting to hear about him being mauled by kobolds was just a bonus

You can read an excerpt of his new book at the Tyche Books website, or find him online at LiveJournal, the BioWare Blog, and Facebook.

#

I came to video games as a player first. Primarily, in fact, as a somewhat terrible player. In the very old Telengard, I was the one wandering down to level 57 and getting eaten by demons. In the marginally less-old Gold Box Pool of Radiance on the Commodore 64, I was the one whose characters, all named after the heroes from Dragonlance, got mauled by kobolds. In Wing Commander, I was relieved to discover that you got medals for at least the first couple of times you panic-ejected. And in Star Control 2, I learned to sit patiently in hyperspace and wait for the Melnorme to come rescue me after the third or fourth time I forgot to purchase fuel.

As I grew up, I ran Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, built worlds, argued over rules, and went through the trials and tribulations that every gaming group encounters. I also started writing my own fiction, starting out with dark literary fiction in college and then gradually moving to lighter and happier work as I found my voice. On the video-game front, I played everything I could by a video-game studio called BioWare — the Baldur’s Gate series, then Neverwinter Nights, and finally Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

I came to BioWare after the editor at Amazing Stories, Dave Gross, bought a couple of stories about a nameless hero and his talking magical sword, and then joined BioWare and asked if I was interested. That was back in 2005. Since then, I’ve written on three games and sold a few more stories, along with my first novel, which came out on September 26th. It’s been an amazing ride, and it’s taught me some interesting things about writing for both the reader and the player.

The first and most obvious point when thinking about writing in games and in novels is that in a game like the ones we make at BioWare, the player has some measure of control over which characters they interact with, and how they talk with and form relationships with those characters. You have to be careful about writing a scene assuming that the player feels a certain way. Writing a buddy scene with the player and a character chatting over drinks? Whoops, it turns out that the player might never have spoken to that character before, and all your familiar old-friend dialog falls flat. Writing a scene where the player intercedes in an argument between two furious characters? Oh, by the way, you might be romancing one of them, and you might or might not have betrayed the other one on a deeply personal mission fifteen minutes ago. Writing an epic sacrifice scene where a beloved character dies tragically? As it turns out, the player has spent the last few hours on Twitter telling all her friends how incredibly annoying this character is, and how they really hope there’s a way to kill him off in the last act.

I used to think of this as a major difference — when I write a novel, I control how well the reader knows the characters, so I’ve got the final say in how those emotional scenes play out, right? As it turns out, working on video games helped me realize how important the reader is. My favorite character in the novel I’m writing might be the one that some readers reluctantly put up with. As a reader, I’ve read clunky novels and hit a point where I was clearly supposed to sympathize with a character who’d come up against terrible misfortune, but my reaction as a reader was, “Well, what did you think was going to happen, dumbass?”

As a novel writer, I’m in control of what the reader sees and hears, but not what the reader feels. Any emotional engagement on the reader’s part, I have to earn. As a result, when writing for games, I put the most emotional dialog behind logic checks that require that the player previously put time into making a connection with that character. And when I’m writing novels, I leave enough emotional content up for inference that the readers who are emotionally engaged will appreciate the scene, while those who don’t care about the character don’t have the assumption of an emotion they don’t share rubbed in their faces.

There are a lot of other differences, of course — writing as part of a team instead of being the sole creator of the world, writing dialog that is spoken aloud by a voice actor instead of read directly by the reader, and working with artists instead of simply writing descriptions for whatever I can imagine — but those aren’t specific to games. Every shared-world contributor has dealt with a team, and every playwright and screenwriter has had to learn to write for ear instead of the eye and work with the artists and set designers to create a shared vision. Video-game writing is where I learned to think of the reader not as the passive recipient of my wit and wisdom, but as an active participant who comes to my stories with his or her own experience, assumptions, and biases… and whose reactions to the story are going to vary accordingly.

Hopefully, then, it’s helped me learn to write things that work for more people. Or at least don’t leave people feeling like they’ve been mauled by kobolds.

Good News on the Ridan Front

I spoke with Ann Crispin about her situation with Ridan Publishing. Apparently Robin Sullivan, who runs Ridan, called this morning and said she is going to fix this.

I have to say, I’m a little stunned. This is exactly what I had hoped for when I wrote my blog post last night, but I didn’t know what would actually happen, and I didn’t expect anything to happen so quickly.

I also want to publicly thank Robin Sullivan for making what I imagine was a very difficult phone call, and for working to make this right. I hope Sullivan will be able to work things out with all of her authors in a timely way.

And to those who signal-boosted (thank you!), would you mind linking back to this update, please?

Ann Crispin and Ridan Publishing

I’m pissed.

I’ve had an exhausting week, between taking care of my injured wife at home, trying to figure out my new job at work, conferences for the kids, and more. I was planning to come home tonight and crash.

And then I came across a post by Ann Crispin. You might recall me blogging about Ann’s situation earlier this year. She’s fighting cancer, and her only source of income this year would be through her Starbridge novels, which had been republished by Ridan Publishing.

Or at least that was the plan. Only Ridan Publishing apparently hasn’t bothered to pay her, or do to much of anything publishers are supposed to do. From her Facebook update:

Ridan has pretty much stopped communicating with me. My last two certified letters, which included the contract termination letter, were never picked up at the post office. Even though StarBridge came out on December 5, 2011, I have never received a royalty payment from Ridan.

I know some of you were waiting for books 6 and 7 in the StarBridge series. Those books were turned in months ago, edited and ready to go, but they have never been released.

Ridan Publishing is owned and run by Robin Sullivan. There have apparently been other questions and concerns about this publisher lately over on Absolute Write.

I don’t know if Sullivan is deliberately trying to scam authors, or if (more likely, in my opinion) she’s simply gotten in over her head.

But I do know that Ann Crispin is an author whose work I’ve enjoyed for more than half of my life, an author who has done tireless and invaluable work for other writers. To Crispin’s great credit, she wrote a very reasonable, level-headed post, hoping for a civil resolution to this mess.

I, on the other hand, am feeling rather less than civil. I tend to feel very protective of those I consider friends, even those I’ve only met and talked to online.

So instead of coming home to crash on the couch, and maybe — if I felt ambitious — getting up to put in an episode of Avatar, I sat down to write this.

#

Dear Robin Sullivan,

I don’t know what led up to the problems outlined by Ann Crispin in her latest Facebook post and on Absolute Write. At this point, however, I don’t particularly care.

Based on what Crispin describes, you have deprived her — an excellent author and an invaluable resource to the SF/F community, who is currently battling cancer — from her sole source of income this year. You have ignored her attempts to communicate with you.

Fix this.

Or I swear to God, I will do everything in my power to drop the entire fucking internet on your head.

Yours,

Jim C. Hines

Possible Fundraiser…

It started with a tweet asking me to do this pose.

Then Charlie Jane Anders offered to pay $5 toward my chiropractor fees if I did it.

Charlie Finlay pledged $5 for the implants I’d need to pull it off.

Tehani Wessely said she’d chip in as well.

I felt like such a fool! All these years, I’ve been going to work like a sucker, when I could have been posing for profit!

And then I thought about it a bit more, wondering how many people would actually pay money to see me do painful cover poses.

Or better yet, how many people would contribute to a worthy cause for such a show?

So now I’m seriously considering holding the First Annual Cover Pose Fundraiser. There are several good causes I’m thinking about right now. I’d pick one and ask people to donate. The more money we raise, the more poses I do. Maybe one additional cover for every $100 up to a thousand dollars. Then maybe every $200. I don’t have all the details worked out yet.

But wait, you cry. Which covers would you do? Therein lies the best part, my friends. I’d let the biggest donors each pick one. Thus encouraging even more generosity toward Good Causes. (Depending on the number of covers I ended up with, I’d probably do a few random drawings from the donors as well so that everyone has a shot at picking covers.)

My biggest concern is the tone of the whole thing. Offering to do ridiculous poses, even to raise money for a good cause, could come off as rather distasteful depending on the cause. On the other hand, I think I could probably frame and present it in such a way that it wouldn’t seem belittling to the cause in question, if that makes sense.

What do you think?

Codex Born Progress:

The October Plan

I originally wrote this piece on Saturday, planning to post it on October 1. Then we took a trip to the emergency room for some non-life-threatening but painful troubles my wife was having. That’s eaten up most of the past 48 hours. So I’m just going to post this today and pretend that October starts now and runs through November 2. That’s fair, right?

#

For more than a decade now, I’ve done the majority of my writing during my lunch break at work. My coworkers have been generally understanding and supportive, which has been great. And looking back at the books and stories I’ve been able to put out, I’d say it’s worked.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been working quite as well with Codex Born. I’m not entirely sure why, though I have a number of theories…

In general, each new book is more ambitious than the last, meaning in some ways, they get progressively harder to write, or require more time and energy to pull together.
Part of my therapy process with depression has been trying to learn to take time for myself, to just relax or have fun. Which is a good and healthy thing, but I wonder if deliberately concentrating on those issues has whittled away from some of the time I used to use to concentrate on the fiction.
Libriomancer is doing amazingly well, which is awesome, but it also means I’m feeling a lot more pressure to make book two as good or better. It’s a great problem to have, but it still means I’m putting additional pressure on myself, which might paradoxically be slowing me down.

I’m thinking about trying something I haven’t done in a long time. Back when I started writing books, we didn’t have National Novel Writing Month. We did have novel dares, though. Back in our day, we didn’t settle for just 50,000 words in a month. We wrote the entire novel. And we wrote uphill! Both ways!

I’ve started on the third draft of Codex Born. I’ve discarded several half-finished drafts, but I’m feeling more confident about this one, and I think I’ve worked through most of the problems that killed the earlier versions. So I’m setting myself a goal to finish this draft in October.

I expect to fail at this goal. Realistically, I think the odds of me completing a full, finished draft this month are pretty slim.

I know it’s not impossible. Heck, I wrote, revised, and started submitting Goblin Quest in about six weeks. But I was unemployed and living in my parents’ house at the time. Realistically, it will be a lot more difficult to do 80-90K words in the next 31 days. But I’m going to try.

And while I expect to fail, I also expect that the goal will help me mentally, and that it will be a more productive month. I’m also going to go back to posting word counts, which I haven’t done in ages, as another mind trick to keep me motivated and on track.

Wish me luck!

Promo Stuff

1 - I did an interview about Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] over at the Paranormal Book Club, where I mention my legendary battle with disco ninjas. There’s a giveaway at the end for a copy of the book, and five others will win autographed bookmarks.

B) Anton Strout had a new book out this week. Alchemystic [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] is the author of the Simon Canderous series, which I enjoyed. (I’ve talked about a few of them on the blog.) I haven’t read the new one yet, though it’s sitting on the pile waiting for me. But I can say Anton writes fun, fast-paced fantasy, which just might appeal to some of the folks reading this blog. He’s also one of my favorite people to taunt online. Penguin has posted an excerpt of the book here.

III. Vera Nazarian is doing a Kickstarter for her book Cobweb Bride. I’ve reviewed some of Vera’s work here and here, and generally enjoy her stuff. She tends toward a more mythic style in most of what I’ve read. The premise for her new book sounds interesting.

Lastly: Belated congratulations to Sherwood Smith and Rachel M. Brown on the sale of their novel Stranger. Smith and Brown turned down an offer of representation last year that came with a condition: “The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight…” I’m happy and proud of both authors for refusing to compromise on that, and I’m delighted to hear that the novel has now been picked up by Sharyn November for Viking. Rachel has more details on her LiveJournal here.

#

And that’s all I’ve got today. Any other new books/projects/announcements we should know about?