Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 178

Jig vs. Jig: Hugo Eligibility

Oh, joy.  It's that time of year again. The time when SF/F author blogs everywhere are bubbling over with publication lists in the hopes of garnering Hugo nominations.



Now, now.  There's nothing wrong with reminding your readers and fans what you've published in the past year.  You have a right to be proud of your work.



Did you know the Hugo Award was named after Hugo Puffzipper III, the first blogger to shamelessly self-promote his way onto the Hugo ballot?



That … that doesn't even make sense!  You're just cranky that "Creature in Your Neighborhood" didn't make the ballot last year.



It had muppet werewolves!  Muppet carnage, muppet death, muppets eating each other … if that's not award-worthy, I don't know what is!  I was robbed by the self-promoters, I tell you!



At least nobody sent you an unsolicited e-mail with their 5 MB novel this year.  Besides, how many of the fans and readers would remember to nominate?  Like so many other elections, it's less about convincing people to vote for you and more about convincing your fans to actually vote.



All right, if we're going to do this like an election, let's go all the way!  My fellow goblins and humans, I'm officially announcing my candidacy for shiny rocketship trophies in the categories of Novel (Red Hood's Revenge) and short story (Heart of Ash in Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters).



There you go.  Brief, honest, and not too tacky.  Was that so bad?



One of my opponents is author John Scalzi.  He wants to eat your babies and is hated by kittens everywhere!  This message brought to you by Flying Kittens for Truth!



Oh dear.



Seanan McGuire has been secretly eliminating her competition through random "DEATH FROM ABOVE" attacks for months!  Vote NO to these tactics of intimidation, or I'll eat your spleen!



I think the Hugo rules prohibit spleen-eating…



Cat Valente wants to provide universal health care to dragons!  Elizabeth Bear sent sexually suggestive text messages to Jar Jar Binks!  Mary Robinette Kowal is totally in the pocket of Big Puppet. John J. Adams outsources his editing to underage Daleks!



Adams is an editor.  You're not even competing with him!



Jay Lake is neither a Jay, nor a Lake!  Sarah Monette broke her ankle kicking puppies!  Lynne Thomas picks her nose with a sonic screwdriver!  Cherie Priest killed Dumbledore.  Sean Wallace isn't–



Oh, come on!  Wallace isn't campaigning for himself.  He's campaigning for Sheila Williams.  For best editor.  You know, that category you're not even eligible for!



Just vote for me or I'll eat your face!  Hey, this blog has to be eligible for something too, right?  Vote for me for best blog!  And best use of sewer goblins in a work of fiction! Best Facebook page!  Best pumpkin!  Best hat!  Now how do I go about getting some of those sweet campaign donations?

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For those who are wondering, I do intend to make Jig vs. Jig an irregular but recurring part of the blog.

And I hope it's obvious that the views of Good-Jig and Evil-Jig do not necessarily represent my own.  I have nothing but respect for the authors mentioned above.  Except for that kitten-eater John Scalzi, of course.

What I Did on my Winter Break

What I did:

Built LEGO Star Wars kits with my son.  (He did about 90% of the work, which was great!)
Introduced my daughter to Scorched Earth, then spent some quality time blowing each other up.
Watched Doctor Who with my wife on New Year's Eve, and went to bed ten minutes before midnight.
Saw my parents, my in-laws, my brother and his wife … pretty much every family member in the state.
Read two Peanuts collections.
Trounced three young children at Mario Kart.
Unpacked and assembled my son's trampoline, then ran around using the foam packing material for swordfighting with the children.
Assembled my daughter's art easel, which turned out to be missing One. Single. Screw.
Ate way too much.

What I didn't do:

Work on the short story that's due March 1, or the book that's due at the end of the year.
Write or plan any new blog posts.
Catch up on all of my backlogged e-mail.  (I did get through about 50% of it, though.)
Get into an argument with a certain individual about e-books.  (I've now been informed that the reason I'm not doing better with my DAW e-books is that $6.99 is too expensive, and the reason I'm not doing well with Goldfish Dreams is because $2.99 is too cheap, and I should be charging $9.99.  I give up.)
Write up reviews for any of the books I've read recently.

I feel a little weird about this.  I'm not terribly good with the whole vacation concept.  My annual leave time at work is pretty much maxed out, because I so rarely use it.  But we had two days off the day job each week for the past two weeks, and for once, I didn't want to spend the whole time working.  I had to deliberately and consciously say "You know what?  Screw it.  I'm going to spend this time playing with my kids and relaxing with my wife and sleeping in and having fun."

It's not something I can do long-term.  Those deadlines aren't going away, and there's always going to be too much work to do.  But it's been a very good two weeks.

SFWA Guest Post on E-books

Earlier this month, I was invited to do a guest post for SFWA about my e-book experiment.  The post went up yesterday at http://www.sfwa.org/2010/12/guest-post-experiments-with-e-books/ If you've been following the blog, you've already read some of what I have to say.  But I expanded the article to incorporate experiences from other authors, and to try to come up with broader conclusions.  I'm hoping the comments will offer some interesting info as well.

JABberwocky (my agent) has also been dipping into the e-book pool.  They've prepared and published an e-book of Simon Green's Beyond the Blue Moon.  Joshua blogs about the process and the thinking behind it here, and is pretty up-front about it all:

There are conflict issues. We don't intend to be the originating publishers for things, at least as we're thinking of it right now, but we are still now the publisher for this book as well as the literary agent for it … I think the business of actually being an agent selling all kinds of rights throughout the world is still too critical and important to want to have an entire huge side business.

A lot of the things he talks about matches the things I ran into as well, both in terms of the work it takes to prepare a file and the next step of "How the heck do we promote this thing?"

Author's Note: Snow Queen

I'm working on the Author's Note and Acknowledgments for The Snow Queen's Shadow [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].

Sometimes this part feels repetitive, since I tend to thank mostly the same people with every book.  But then, these are the same people who help me improve the story, who take it from manuscript to finished book.  I think it's important to thank them, and to remember that this isn't something I could do alone.

I'm thinking about trying to include a bit more information this time around.  So I was wondering — if there were one question you could ask me about writing or about the princess series, what would it be?  I don't mean spoilers, but what sort of behind-the-scenes info would be most interesting to you as a reader?

Or just in general, if you do read author notes and such, what sort of thing makes them enjoyable and worth reading?

To the authors out there, what are your thoughts on acknowledgments and author notes?

I suspect I might be overthinking this whole thing, but hey, it's what I do!

iPhone Review (and a Christmas Song)

I've had the iPhone 4, hereafter known as Shinynewphone, for a few months now.  I figured it was time to describe the pros and cons of the new toy.  Overall, I'm quite happy.  Details beneath the cut, along with a sample photo and a video of my son singing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.

Phone: Ironically, this is the function I use the least.  I'm 1/3 through the current billing cycle, and I've used a total of 8 minutes of call time.  As a phone, it works okay.  The quality is only so-so, and the phone is a little oversensitive when it comes to dialing.  I must have accidentally dialed at least a dozen people when editing contact info.  I've never once used the Facetime function.  As a phone, I'd give it 5/10.

[image error]Camera: The camera, on the other hand, I use a lot.  It's not quite as good as a "real" digital camera, but it's reasonably close.  Outdoor pics work better than indoor.  The phone does have an LED flash, which isn't great, but it's better than nothing.  Here's a shot I took of my daughter Clara.  Click for the full-size, unaltered photo.

Digital zoom is relatively worthless, and the built-in HDR function is pretty weak.  But overall, it's still a nice camera.  Shutter speed and responsiveness are actually better than our digital camera, and I love the convenience of having it with me.  Compared to a regular camera, I'd give it 7/10.  As a phone camera, it's a 10/10.

Conventions: Shinynewphone has come to two cons with me, and it's wonderful.  I can keep my e-mail under control, snap pics, update Twitter and Facebook with random observations about John Scalzi's beard, and program the calendar to remind me about signings and panels and such.  If I didn't mess up the link, this should take you to my WFC album on Facebook.  It's definitely a useful tool for conventioning.

Games: I don't play a lot with video games, but Shinynewphone delights in tempting me.  I've downloaded a few free games like Sudoku, and I bought Lego Harry Potter a little while back.  I picked up Dragon's Lair when it was on sale, too (purely for the nostalgia).  Harry Potter is the fanciest game I've got, and it's pretty good.  The touch screen isn't the best controller, but it works.  Not as good as a dedicated handheld gaming system, but I'd give it a 7/10.

Music:  I've got a bunch of music files loaded onto the phone, but Pandora has become my new best friend.  Streaming, customized radio … I love it!  I've been using stations based on Lord of the Rings and John Williams during my writing break.  I also set one up based on A Charlie Brown Christmas, and got some great instrumental Christmas tunes for the family.  I've got the 2 GB data plan, and I don't use the radio every day, so this hasn't come close to surpassing my data limit.  9/10 for music functionality.

Kids: Shinynewphone comes with an unexpected benefit–it's wonderful for entertaining impatient five-year-olds.  At Windycon, when we were waiting at the restaurant, I clicked the YouTube app and entertained my son Jackson with Star Wars fanvids.  I've also used the camera and video camera to keep the kids distracted.  11/10 for parental sanity!

Video: I bought a video camera years ago.  Yeah, I wanted to be that Dad, the one that records everything.  Trouble is, a video camera is big and bulky, and if you don't use it the battery wears down.  And this one used minitapes, which then had to be copied to the computer, and then burned to DVD.  Not fun.  So having a ready-to-go video camera in my pocket is wonderful, and the quality is pretty darn good.  Here's a video of Jackson singing a Christmas carol.  (The ending is my favorite part.  That was all him.)  8/10.

Overall: Basically, I've got a computer/camera/iPod/Phone that fits in my pocket.  We didn't have cellphones when I was a kid, so this totally presses my "The Future is Awesome!" button.  It's a multifunction device, meaning none of those functions are quite as good as they would be in a sole-purpose device … but it does pretty darn well.  It's absolutely a luxury, but it's also a fun and useful tool.  I'm happy with it.

Best of 2010

Best Smackdown: No contest. The honor goes to George Takei's video response to Clint McCance.  "Mister McCance, you are a douchebag."

Best Book Read: I'm gonna go with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms [B&N | Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon] by N. K. Jemisin.  I commented briefly on this one here.

Best Family Trip: Windycon.  This was my first convention with my wife and kids, and it was great.  We don't get much vacation time, so it was wonderful just spending a few days together.  They all enjoyed the con, but I think my favorite part was Friday night before everyone else arrived, just goofing around in the pool together.

Best Random Artwork: Anime Snoopy vs. Ninja Cats, by socchan.

Best Discovery: Doctor Who.  (David Tennant in particular.)  In my 36 years on this Earth, people have introduced me to Monty Python, Red Dwarf, and so much more … so why didn't anyone tell me about the Doctor?  I blame ALL OF YOU!  Fortunately, we have borrowed several seasons worth of DVDs, and are remedying this oversight as quickly as possible.

Best Convention: World Fantasy Con.  Four whole days, and so many wonderful people to meet and catch up with.

Best Realization in Sanchin-Ryu: Holy crap!  I don't know anything!!!  (Thank you Master Faught for this lesson.)

Best Moment with my Son (Age 5): Having dinner with friends, and watching him play with their five-year-old for hours without any problems or conflicts.  It eased one of my biggest fears following his ASD diagnosis earlier this year.

Best Moment with my Daughter (Age 10): Seeing her in deliberately mismatched socks, two T-shirts (one tied with scrunchies), & a thin braid of hair clipped back over one year, and realizing she's exploring how to express herself and who she wants to be.  And that who she's becoming is pretty darn cool.

Best Writing Moment (Business): Getting the offer from DAW for the Magic ex Libris series.  Book deals are always nice, but this one represents a significant step up in my career.  Plus it's a series I'm really excited about!

Best Writing Moment (Creative): Figuring out how to end The Snow Queen's Shadow [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].  Without spoiling things, it felt right.  It felt honest.  And I'm pretty damn proud.

Best LEGO: Transforming Optimus Prime.

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Feel free to add your own!

First Book Friday: Kelly McCullough

Welcome to the last  First Book Friday  of 2010.  I'll be taking a break for the next few weeks, but we'll hopefully get more author stories next month.  Finishing out the year is Kelly McCullough.

Kelly's series blends mythology, magic, and hacking, but most importantly, he also writes about webgoblins.  And as we all know, goblins make everything better.  (Click here for my thoughts on some of his books.)

Kelly's web site doesn't include much biographical information.  Therefore we are free, nay obligated, to make stuff up.  I'll start by revealing that Kelly McCullough used to make extra money as a crash test dummy for Go Carts.

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I started writing seriously in 1990, finishing my 1st novel in about four months. I did it mostly because I'd met a wonderful woman who I intended to marry.

I wanted to have something approaching a normal life as well as a successful marriage and for me that meant giving up theater a career trajectory I had been on since the age of 11. Writing a novel was artistic methadone for my theater addiction. It also turned out to be a much more compelling artistic drug, at least for me, but I didn't know that going in.

The novel was called Uriel and it's currently trunked. It was a contemporary fantasy written around a mafia hitman/vampire protagonist and the return of magic into the world with the coming of the harmonic convergence. Despite that, it actually didn't suck and I may some day write it again from scratch since I still love the plot. It even got some moderately hard nibbles from big New York houses. If I'd known then what I know now I might have been able to rewrite it to spec from one of those rejections and sell it to the editor in question.

Not knowing that and having my first-born novel rejected was the best awful thing that ever happened to me because it forced me to keep growing as a writer and to try something different. If I'd sold Uriel straight out of the gate, I might well be into my second decade of a mediocre but possibly quite successful career.

My 2nd novel was a fantasy farce called Swine Prince. It also got serious attention from New York, though it never quite cleared the bar. It's on its third major incarnation at this point and off seeking a publisher once again. It's fast, it's funny, and in its current form it might well sell. Not selling it right of the gate was the 2nd best awful thing that happened to me, for pretty much the same reasons. You might be starting to see a pattern.

My 3rd novel was a traditional fantasy piece, book one of a trilogy. It's currently trunked, but might well be rewritten and sold since the world and magic system I built it on provides the scaffold for my Kingslayer books, three of which are forthcoming from Ace in 2011 and 2012. Not selling it was the 3rd best awful… Etc.

My 4th novel was a category-defying book called WebMage [B&N |  Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon], call it cyberfantasy with humorous undertones. I wrote it in 1998/1999 after taking a novel hiatus to write short stories. It's the book that got me an agent. It started being shopped around in 2000, the year I was a Writers of the Future winner but it didn't sell then, and that was the 4th most…

Somewhere in here, I formulated my basic view of the publishing industry and breaking in. Selling your book is like trying to knock down a brick wall with your forehead. It seems an impossible task until you remember that your forehead heals and the wall doesn't, so if you're persistent…

I wrote a 5th book, Winter of Discontent, and a 6th, Numismancer, and a 7th, The Urbana. As I was outlining my 8th, Chalice, I got a call from my agent. It was in the middle of the biggest family mess of my entire life which was an awful thing with no redeeming features.

Because of that, I was pretty distracted when I got the call. So much so that it wasn't until my knees gave out that I realized my agent was telling me he'd just landed a two book deal for WebMage and a sequel. Then I was sitting down.

The funny thing was that I wasn't wildly happy, as I'd always expected to be when I got that news. No, I was just profoundly relieved. All of the work and sacrifice and pain wasn't going to have been for nothing. Later, I was happy and giddy and all those other things, but the first feeling was simple relief. I hadn't chosen the wrong path.

I wrote two more novels before WebMage hit the shelves, Chalice, and the sequel to WebMage, Cybermancy.

So, how do you get from first book written to first book on the shelves of your local bookstore? In my case, you write a bunch more books. You keep going no matter the disappointment and you keep trying to make each book better than and different from the last one, and someday the wall comes down.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The House has voted 250 to 175 to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  The repeal was shot down once by the Senate when it was attached to a larger bill, but now it's going back to the Senate as standalone legislation.1

Can someone please tell me why this is even an issue?  Beyond the fact that certain politicians want to make it an issue, I mean.

One argument I've heard is that the presence of homosexuals will be too distracting to our soldiers.  Um.  How's that again?  Is all that military training and discipline so flimsy that it falls apart the moment Neil Patrick Harris strides into the room?  (Okay, bad example.  NPH disrupts entire nations by sheer force of awesomeness.  But you get the idea.)

If our goal is really to guarantee the comfort and safety of our soldiers, maybe we should stop worrying about homosexuality and instead ban straight men from serving.  You know, given that "a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire" and all.

John McCain has argued that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is working.  He argues, "The military is at its highest point in recruitment, in retention, in professionalism, in capability."

We've been fighting how many wars for how long now?  The military has been working for years to improve recruitment and retention.  Or are you implying that retention is up not because of those recruitment efforts, not because our children are growing up never knowing a United States that wasn't at war, not because the economy and high unemployment push more people to enlist, but simply because people are eager to join a gay-free club?

Even the Pentagon says:

Based on all we saw and heard, our assessment is that, when coupled with the prompt implementation of the recommendations we offer below, the risk of repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell to overall military effectiveness is low.

This comes after a study which incorporated responses from more than 100,000 active servicemen and women, more than 100,000 family members of those servicemen and women, discussions at 51 different bases and installations, and much more.

Major Alan G. Rogers also researched this issue.  He was killed in January of 2008 in Iraq by an IED, and was buried with full honors at Arlington.  Oh, and he was gay.

From Major Rogers' Masters thesis:

Current policy on gays in the military seems to rest on many faulty assumptions – namely that homosexuals will jeopardize unit cohesiveness. My research has been unable to justify that position and has found that the opposite is more true. Denying service members the right to serve freely and openly violates basic dignity and respect of the human experience and puts our national security at risk.

For almost a decade, I've been hearing how nothing is more vital than our National Security.  I'd expect this to mean we welcome and thank all those who volunteer to serve our country.  That we would want every qualified serviceman and woman we could find.  Yet bewteen 1997 and 2006, more than 11,000 men and women have been kicked out of the military under Don't Ask, Don't Tell.2

Apparently for for some people, homosexuals are an even greater threat than the terrorists.

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Doonesbury is currently doing a series on DADT. ↩
This includes a disproportionate number of women and minoroties, by the way… ↩

Borders + B&N = Do Not Want!

Last week, GalleyCat reported on the possibility of Borders buying Barnes & Noble.  I don't give a lot of credence to rumors, and I'm doubtful this one will actually happen.  But the idea scares me.

Let me tell you a story from years ago.  Tobias Buckell and I were in Chicago for Windycon, along with my then-agent Steve Mancino.  When we weren't conventioning, we headed out to various bookstores to sign stock: Crystal Rain for Toby, and Goblin Quest for me.  Within an hour, we had the routine down:

When we went into a Borders, I would run to grab my goblin books, autographing like a fiend.  Toby got to sit around twiddling his thumbs.

When we went to B&N, it was my turn on thumb-twiddling duty while Toby did his autographing thing.

There were a few exceptions, but we hit a lot of stores, and the pattern was obvious.  Borders liked the goblins, but wasn't interested in Caribbean steampunk space adventure.  B&N liked Crystal Rain, but wasn't excited about goblins.

In each case, the chain's buyer had looked at our books and decided whether or not to stock our books.  How much better would Goblin Quest have sold if the B&N buyer had liked it?  How much worse would I have done if the Borders buyer hadn't?

These are the two biggest brick & mortar chains in the United States, meaning a good portion of book sales go through these two businesses.

Imagine this hypothetical merger actually goes through.  Now it's one chain.  One buyer.  One person's opinion will have an even greater impact on your sales.  One person determines which books you find on the shelves, and which ones you don't.

It scares me.

I imagine some will see this as yet more proof that brick & mortar stores are dying, and online sales/e-books are the wave of the future.  Amazon has millions of books available, after all.  (Aside from the ones they ban for being too naughty.) But that means your book is one among millions.  I know Amazon is working to help readers find new books/authors they'll like, but I don't think they're there yet.

I believe there is a need for a gatekeeper function.  Physical stores have to rotate stock, emphasizing new releases, popular titles, and books they believe customers will buy.  They go through those millions of titles to find the ones they believe their customers are most interested in.  So if your book gets into the stores, it has a better chance of being seen by random browsers.

Let me put it this way.  Amazon has a listing for every single Publish America title.  Your local bookstore might special order a PA title for you, but you're not going to find them eating up shelf space.

When you have a lot of bookstores making different choices, I think this model can work.  Particularly when stores have the autonomy to buy and stock books that will be popular in that region.  When only two chains dominate sales, the bookstore-as-gatekeeper model develops problems, but it's better than a single big chain.  The idea of merging the two, or of Borders simply going out of business . . . either way, you're left with one giant.  One gatekeeper controlling a frighteningly disproportionate number of books.

My agent has posted his thoughts about the state of Borders and the two big U.S. chains.  NPR recently published an article talking about how the changing nature of bookselling could actually strengthen the independent bookstore.

What do you think?

Monday Miscellany

Thanks to everyone who entered to win a copy of The Secret History of Moscow [B&N | Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by Ekaterina Sedia.  Of the 37 entries on my various blog mirrors, Random.org has chosen temporaryworlds as the winner.  Congrats, and I'll be contacting you shortly to get your mailing info.

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I was going to do a separate post about this, but you know what?  Stupid doesn't deserve a full post.

Last week, another random anonymous commenter popped up on one of my old rape posts. He followed the typical pattern, explaining how only one in a thousand women are really raped.  I guess the rest are just part of the Great Rape Conspiracy. And then, as so many of these guys do, he added the tired old line: I don't know anyone who's been raped.

If you think this proves your point — if you can't distinguish between "Nobody I know has been raped" and "Nobody I know has chosen to tell me they were raped" — then you need to get off the computer and go back to school.  I recommend remedial logic.  Because if you're the kind of person who goes around commenting anonymously on strangers' blogs to explain that rape isn't a problem, that the True numbers are minuscule, and the rest of those women are just making it up for their own misguided or malicious ends … is it any wonder people don't choose to talk to you about having been raped?

Don't be that guy.

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Finally, fairy tale in LEGO: scrat_ has done an impressive rendering of Hans Christian Anderson's tale The Little Match Girl.  Click the pic for the full set.