Hugh Howey's Blog, page 7

SAND Daily Deal!

Oh, boy. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these. For today only, SAND is on sale for the bargain basement price of $1.99 (it’s usually $9.99!!). Don’t feel bad for taking advantage of this insane price. The publisher is taking the loss, not me! So buy as many as you like! Gift a few to friends and loved ones!

Besides WOOL, this is by far my most popular novel. It’s a different world, a completely unrelated story, and one of the books I recommend when people ask me “what book of yours should I read first?”

This is perfect timing for readers: the sequel to SAND is coming in early October! So snag the first book now and be ready for the next in the series. :)

If you’ve already read SAND, this is a great chance to tell friends and strangers to hop onboard. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee you get a thrilling story about a family on the edge of civilization. Forced to dive beneath hundreds of meters of sand to drag up remnants of the old world, these siblings realize they must come together to prevent their world from falling apart.

Bonus: it’s full of amazing artwork from Ben Adams!

Thanks for all the support, and happy reading!

The post SAND Daily Deal! appeared first on Hugh Howey.

The SPSFC continues!

Welcome back to the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition! Now in its second year!

In case you missed it last year, you may be wondering what in the world is the SPSFC? Well, it’s an opportunity to shine a great big laser beam on wonderful works of self-pubbed science fiction.

For a few years now, Mark Lawrence has been organizing a contest known as the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. Science fiction authors and bloggers have been clamoring for something similar. So we made it ourselves. Just bigger, faster, stronger. Scouring the world for amazing scifi, and whittling down 300 entrants to just 7 finalists over the span of a year.

The format is simple:

Ten book blogger / judging teams, 300 science fiction novels, a year of reading and reviewing. At the end we have one winner. Next year, we will do it all over again. And again. And again.

The winner gets a badge and a raygun trophy. Most importantly, they get heaps of recognition and bragging rights. All the finalists and many of the entries will naturally get more eyeballs on their books, which is what authors and eye-eating aliens crave the most.

Some rules:

1) Your book must be a standalone or the first in a series.
2) One book per author. So send your best!
3) It must be a novel, not an anthology.
4) The book must be self-published and available for purchase now.
5) Works must be at least 40,000 words.

For more information on the competition rules or the results of the first ever #SPSFC, or for a general gander, you can check out the website here.

Our 2021 finalists:

Our 2021 winner:

Applications forms for the SPSFC 2022:

Applications for Authors and Judges are now open.

Note: Applications close July 31st.

What authors need to know:

Ebooks will need to be sent in .epub format. If we get over 300 submissions, we will winnow them down based on very subjective slush-pile criteria + time of submission. ie. Early bird gets the bookworm.

What reviewers need to know:

Applications are now open to be one of our ten reviewer teams! As a former book blogger and reviewer, I know what you’re in for. It will be a lot of work, but if you enjoy helping readers find hidden gems, it will be rewarding.

The post The SPSFC continues! appeared first on Hugh Howey.

SPSFC 2022

The second annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition is about to begin!

Author applications are now open!

You’ll need to answer a questionnaire so we know a little bit about you and your work, and you’ll have to make sure your book qualifies (word count, content guidelines, correct genre).

Over the course of the next eleven / twelve months, the first 300 novels entered will be whittled down to seven finalists and one winner. To read more about the competition, click here.

Note: Applications close July 31st

On a side note, we’re looking for Judges / reviewers / bloggers for this year’s competition, so if that’s your thing, please enter here.

Best of luck, everyone!

The post SPSFC 2022 appeared first on Hugh Howey.

The Age of Excess

A friend messaged me today about the sad state of affairs when we are reliant on billionaires for communication channels. It was of course in response to Elon Musk purchasing Twitter. The widespread emotional response to this purchase got me thinking about several things:

Firstly, that we have long been at the whims of the ultra wealthy for our access to communication. Zuckerberg and Jack are the modern versions, but before this it was Ma Bell, and before that it was the Church. History is littered with examples of power being based on access to voice. It’s no accident that the first amendment to the US constitution was an attempt to keep that right unbound.

Secondly, it’s fascinating to me how a billionaire purchasing a tech giant triggers a wildly different emotional response compared to someone becoming a billionaire after founding a tech giant. We’ve lived with the weirdness of Zuckerberg and Jack for a while now. And the outright awfulness of Murdoch. They’ve gotten their share of our ire, but it will be different with Musk because of psychological forces at play. We don’t treat as identical a crime of action as we do a crime of inaction. Someone who pulls a lever that sends a train into a dozen bystanders is not prosecuted identically as someone who could have pulled a lever to divert a train from a dozen bystanders. By purchasing a tech giant, Elon has pulled a lever. He will be given far less quarter from the public, a distinction that I don’t believe he is wise enough to fully grasp.

The third thing that came to mind is that most users will stay with Twitter because of the same craving of a bully pulpit that caused Elon to purchase Twitter. That is, we are little different from him. If we were less like Elon, we would be content to send our thoughts and cat photos to our close friends using gmail, or Whatsapp, or group SMS. We would write on our blogs, knowing that few people would ever read what we wrote (and we wouldn’t even Tweet or FB a link to the blog). We would start a newsletter and send it to our eight subscribers.

But we don’t. We have a billionaire mentality as well. We want to broadcast to the whole world, command everyone’s attention, amass as many followers as possible, acquire, acquire, acquire, preach, preach, preach. It is an age of excess, and we are its inhabitants.

If I spend less time on Twitter going forward, it won’t be because I’m mad at Elon Musk for purchasing the platform. It was already owned by weird people doing weird things, people with far too much power who pay far too little in taxes. Jack sat numbly by while Trump violated the Twitter terms of service and sowed discord and false information. Zuck and Jack both have allowed bots and sock puppets to abound in order to show user growth over actual user experience. One type of terrible will be substituted for another. It isn’t that the outrage is misplaced, it’s that it should’ve already been at current levels.

No, I hope I spend less time on Twitter because I already wanted to spend less time on Twitter. I hope I spend more time blogging to nobody, because that’s where I do my best thinking. I hope I spend more time on tumblr, because it’s owned by a friend who has a massive heart to go with his huge brain. I hope I send more private thoughts to close friends and less time trying to win over new ones. I have an excess mentality as well. We were all born with some version of it. Many times in life I’ve had to be reminded that this part of my brain is far too much in charge, and I have to dial it back, simplify, get out on the water in the vast empty sea, write something that I know will never sell, blog what I hope no one will ever read, think silently, read to myself, write a poem in the clouds, and whisper my love to no one.

The post The Age of Excess appeared first on Hugh Howey.

The Power of Story

Writing is such a strange profession. When I’m not sitting with my laptop making up worlds that do not exist and having conversations between figments of my imagination, I’m lost in silly daydreams and having bizarre flights of fancy. Too much of this could get you committed to an institution, but slap some cover art on it and offer it up for sale, and you’re an author!

There are times that I feel guilty for what I do for a living. It’s party because I love it so much that it doesn’t feel like work. In fact, what began as a hobby was never meant to support me. I’d gladly do this for nothing — which is how it all got started.

The other part of the guilt comes when I forget how necessary story is in our lives. I often compare my profession with someone cooking and delivering a hot meal, or shelving groceries, or building a house, and it feels like what I do isn’t that important. But then I consume the right kind of story elsewhere, the core of me shifts in response, and I remember why I got into writing in the first place. Stories are powerful. They might be the most powerful thing humans have ever invented.

That’s a bold claim, I know. But so much of what we build comes from the stories we tell. Look at how powerful world religions have been throughout human history, and they are little more than story. All their power comes from the written and spoken word. Look at the impact that sports and contests have played, and they are at their heart little more than stories of triumph and conquest. Wars are waged because of the stories we tell about ourselves and others. Countries are created and borders drawn because of stories we accept. And few things move by the fickle of story like markets and economies.

Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal is a fantastic history of our chattering, gossiping selves. A must-read, in my opinion. The book details how central story is to our very being, so much so that even when we sleep we continue to create little fictions. I believe that story lies at the heart of human consciousness, that it’s the running account of what we are seeing and experiencing that gives us a sense of self at all.

Story + Language = Us.

I fiction, therefore I am.

My screenwriting partner Matt Mikalatos has a brilliant analogy for the power of story, an analogy that I will now mangle in the retelling. When we bombard people with facts, what we often find is a natural resistance to being swayed. We build walls around our current knowledge and understanding, and shifting those walls is rarely done willingly.

Stories are a Trojan Horse for the human heart. Rather than repel them, we gladly bring them inside where they change us from within. The best stories then are the ones that contain truths we would reject in any other form. They are the subversive stories. The ones that feign to entertain while shifting our cores.

For the past few months, Matt and I have been dreaming up a new world from scratch. And as we create characters and predicaments, the chatter between us continually touches upon the message we hope to convey. What truths will scurry inside when readers and viewers accept this Trojan Horse of ours into their imaginations?

It works both ways, realizing how powerful story can be for shaping our thoughts. As writers, we can unlock powerful tools for generating stories when we understand the themes we are trying to explore. The central problem of writing is knowing what not to write. The choices and possibilities are endless! Themes and kernels of truth narrow our focus and winnow those possibilities, creating not just a stronger story but usually a more entertaining one as well.

One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever stumbled upon came from a book called The Writers’ Journey by Christopher Vogler. The book is meant for screenplay writers, but it applies equally well to novelists. One of Vogler’s contentions is that every good story can be described with a single word. That’s right, just one word to sum up your entire work. Finding this solitary word can be difficult, but once you do, it unlocks so much power in shaping the details of your world and its inhabitants. It gives every facet of your work focus.

A challenge I offer here to take the power of story seriously in your own life. Look more broadly for the stories you allow in, and be discerning with the stories you tell. Because it’s a power we all wield. We tell stories with our social media, with the tidbits of world events that we share with our friends and family, and with the gossip we choose to share and the moments we grace with silence.

All of us are constantly playing a part, inviting others within our walls while invading our neighbors in return. Pay attention to this and you’ll see it everywhere. Study it, and you’ll find you can often condense each story down to a single theme or solitary world. Practice all this, and it’ll make you a better participant in the exchange of story happening at all times all around us.

It’s the most powerful tool we’ve ever invented. We might as well learn how to use it.

The post The Power of Story appeared first on Hugh Howey.

Matrix 4: A Singular Work of Genius

The Matrix: Resurrections was one of the worst films I saw in 2021. I wanted to walk out several times, and probably would have had my partner asked to go. It was difficult to sit through. The best thing I could say about it after was that it made me hate parts 2 and 3 a lot less by comparison.

A day later, I’m now convinced that The Matrix: Resurrections is one of the finest works of art that I’ve ever experienced in my life.

How I got from there to here is complicated. But let me try to explain.

In 1999, The Matrix hit cinemas and changed film forever. No fight sequence has been filmed the same way since. It was the ultimate kung-fu film for the modern age. I saw it in the theaters several times and felt empowered by the visuals, the action sequences, even the message. The message was to wake up. Don’t be subservient. Don’t fall into a routine. Life should be more than what the world is currently offering.

This was the message we saw, but it wasn’t the message Lana and Lilly intended. It’s easy to pretend that the transgender Wachowskis underwent their transformation after the success of The Matrix. It’s certainly more comforting to many of the film’s fans to assume the film was made by masculine men for their masculine tastes. This was true for me.

When I first heard Lana was transitioning, I felt discomforted. It was nearly twenty years ago, and trans issues and trans rights weren’t on my radar. I knew these things existed, but I hadn’t wrestled with the subject. Suddenly (to me), one of my cultural heroes was not what I thought they were. Not what I wanted them to be. I was the Matrix. I just couldn’t see that yet.

______________________________

I woke up yesterday morning at 5:00 am to work through the final proof of my upcoming book, ACROSS THE SAND. After I got to the last page and sent off notes and corrections to my editor, I sat there for a while and realized that I’d just read the best work I’ve written to date. Immediately following this realization, I wondered if anyone else would even like the book. It’s possible they won’t. The two things are completely unrelated.

ACROSS THE SAND is a book about my father, who passed away eighteen months ago. My father was a great man and also a colossal disappointment. He was a misogynist, a racist, an addict, an abuser. He was also incredibly generous to those he loved, a fantastic storyteller, an entertainer, someone who lived for doing good deeds. He was also a con man, a tax cheat, a home wrecker, and a liar.

I spent most of my life seeing only the good in my father. I put him on a pedestal. It took me a very long time to realize how badly I failed him as a son to do this. It left no room for him to work on himself, and no room for him to learn from me. By the time I realized who he was and made any attempt to help him, it was too late. I had empowered and enabled him into a state of rigid inflexibility. This has been my greatest failure, among many that deserve mentioning. It was also unfair to my mother, who had to endure my misplaced adulation at a time I should have been more supportive of her.

A dozen years ago, I wrote a short story called WOOL that would change my life. It was a story about the loss of my dog, the disillusionment of our newly connected world, and the frustrations I felt about the need to see the world with my own eyes and not through a screen of biases and bad news. When the story took off, I wrote a serialized novel in which I expanded on these ideas. But as the success grew, I became terrified of writing for an audience. The last thing I wanted was to fall into a trap of telling the same story over and over, the same character cracking the same cases, the same couple falling in and out of love, being chained to a typewriter and pecking away like some trained monkey.

The sequel to WOOL, my novel SHIFT, was an act of rebellion. It was right there in the title. A shift away from the character people wanted more of. A shift in the time, place, and tone of the novel that launched my professional career. By the time I wrote part 5 of the novel WOOL, I was already weary of no longer writing for myself. I had to learn how to write as a fuck-you to my audience. Which is the kind of writing they fell in love with in the first place.

______________________________

The above vignettes are meant to highlight how primed I should’ve been to love The Matrix: Resurrections . I know what it’s like for art to be hijacked by popularity, what it feels like for audience expectation to drown out creative freedoms. I know what it’s like to create works of fiction that are meant for ourselves, not caring until much later whether it’s enjoyed by others. I know these things deeply and profoundly, and yet I still missed the point. I went into the latest Matrix film expecting to be wowed by the Kung fu. Lana knew this. She blew up the goddamn dojo because she knew this. And I still missed it.

Before we dig deep into the message of the film, please know that the symbolism of Lana’s transgender experience was not lost on me while watching the movie. I got that the film was about her feeling trapped by society, by cultural norms, by the success of the first film, by her body, by our notions of therapy. I got that. What I didn’t get until a day later is that I wasn’t supposed to enjoy the film. If I had enjoyed it, it would’ve been a failure. I would’ve been so blinded by my enjoyment that I would’ve missed the deeper message. Which is what happened to me and most of the audience back in 1999.

You see, I went into the theater expecting cinema. When what I got instead was art. And the best kinds of art are not meant to be enjoyed. They are created to challenge us. To discomfort us. To make us wrestle with our preconceived notions, our normal perspectives, to make our skin feel as though it doesn’t quite fit anymore.

Picasso’s Guernica isn’t meant to please us. Warhol’s pop art isn’t meant to make us want soup. Pollock didn’t care if his works went with the decor. We don’t stand in front of those pieces today, feeling like our neurons are twisted in a knot, and wishing they instead made us feel whole. We relish their complexity and the discomfort they engender. That’s what we are signing up for. It’s why I go to galleries. My problem yesterday is that I thought I was going to the cinema.

Here’s where I dive into Lana’s head for a moment and get everything wrong, but fuckit: Lana Wachowski made a film for herself, about herself. She didn’t think about the audience, except perhaps to hope it would piss many of us off. And likely that it would cause a very small minority who got it immediately to pump their fists in celebration. I was one of the former. I’m now one of the latter. And not as a woke pro-trans liberal (though I admit to these virtues and signal them happily), but as a fuck-you artist who writes what I goddamn well please, which is usually my own inner tragedies and travails, and so what if some of you dig the action sequences.

When we meet Neo, we find him doing what we wished Lana and Lilly would’ve done: stop being themselves, remain trapped in their masculine bodies, churn out masculine films, be miserable so that we can be entertained. Be uncomfortable so we can be comfortable.

The enemy in the film is her therapist, which is all of us. Be normal. Take the blue pill. All the blue pills. Keep your insane visions of your actual identity to yourself, because that identity makes us squirm. Be who we want you to be. Give us what we want to see.

One of the things that upset me while watching The Matrix: Resurrections was all the bits of the original films spliced in along the way. It felt lazy and derivative. As did the same shots and sequences that we got the last time (the bullets raining down below the helicopter, the blurred fists flying into the belly, running along the walls).

What seemed lazy was really Lana laughing at me for wanting the same old shit, knowing that I’d hate it if I got the same old shit. If all I wanted was to watch The Matrix again, then what was I doing there in the theater twenty-two years later? Go home and pop in the DVD. I’m not here to be your monkey. And I’m mocking you for expecting that. That was Lana laughing at me. And she nailed it.

In the end, The Matrix: Resurrections is a love story not between two people but between two halves of a person. It’s a love story from Lana to Lana. It’s the bravest film I’ve ever seen, to put self-love, self-flagellation, and self-forgiveness on such overt display. Lana was forgiving her masculine self for being the matrix for so many years. She was forgiving herself for making a film that appealed to toxic masculinity. It’s a film not about destroying the masculine to make room for the feminine, but rather a film about letting the feminine self fly and carry the rest. Neo and Trinity’s pods aren’t arranged across from each other in a Romeo and Juliette way, but in a brain’s hemispheric manner. It is two halves of a whole. Lana spent most of her life trying to kill the woman inside her, then the last two decades resenting the man who ruled her, and now she is free, both halves, with the woman she always was in charge of the whole show.

We wanted an action film. I did, at least. Instead I got a confession. I got a work of redemptive art. I got a love letter to a creator who made an accidental prison out of her success until she learned how to destroy that prison by first destroying our expectations. And then … finally … eventually … learning to not even consider our expectations.

Looking back, the 2nd and 3rd Matrix films were attempts to tell this story while appealing to fans of the original. They were transitory works of art, still trapped in the past, longing to break free. It took Lana years more to stop caring about what we thought. I applaud her for that. I hope to get there one day myself.

Until then, I think Banksy said it best when he said:

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Goddamn right. I was comfortable yesterday, and Lana made me feel disturbed. She made me want to get up and walk out. She made a film not for me but for her and anyone who got what she was after. A day later, I’m envious of those who enjoyed the film on a first viewing. Next time I’ll try less hard to be happy. I’ll sit and endure this singular work of art as art is meant to be enjoyed, which is hardly at all.

The post Matrix 4: A Singular Work of Genius appeared first on Hugh Howey.

SPSFC Submissions

The first annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition is about to begin!

On July 1st, at noon EST (9am PST), author applications will open.

Have your files ready (an .epub or .mobi file and your cover art). You’ll need to answer a questionnaire so we know a little bit about you and your work, and you’ll have to make sure your book qualifies (word count, content guidelines, correct genre).

Over the course of the next eleven months, the first 300 novels entered will be whittled down to ten finalists and one winner. To read more about the competition, click here.

Best of luck, everyone!

The post SPSFC Submissions appeared first on Hugh Howey.

Human Nature

For the last month or so, Rebecca Ferguson and I have been discussing the character of Juliette Nichols as she prepares to portray Jules for the upcoming TV show. One of our recent emails descended into a philosophical discussion, which I thought readers might find interesting. With Rebecca’s permission, and picking up halfway through the email, I share it with you all here:

The philosophical underpinnings of the novel WOOL goes back to an age-old question about human nature. There are two broad views about our goodness or lack thereof. One school (often associated with the philosopher Jean Jacque Rousseau) says that humans are born innately good and it is society which corrupts us. This is the “Noble Savage” theory of human morality. The other school (linked to philosopher Thomas Hobbes) says that humans are born immoral and that civilization gradually tames us. That without a strong system of laws, we would run amok. This is called the “Leviathan” theory of human morality.

The debate between these two schools has defined human existence. It’s the difference between conservatism and liberalism, between hippie communes and brutal dictators. Most of us probably believe that neither school is 100% true, but the direction we lean informs our view of our fellow man and society. Do kids need to be strictly punished or allowed to explore and flourish? Should criminals be locked away for good or rehabilitated? Should we dominate the earth and bend it to our whim, or should we preserve it in order to not let ourselves be destroyed?

I have sad news to report: science has come down far more in support of Hobbes’ pessimism than Rousseau’s optimism. Kids lie willingly and often, as though the talent were inborn. Communes fall apart largely because of the freeloading and laziness of the worst among them. Societies without laws descend into anarchy. However (and this might be the biggest however in human history): rules are like water in that we need them, but too much and you drown.

This is where my own theory comes into play: I think humans are really good at seeing cause and effect. We do A and B happens. A caused B. More of A will lead to more of B. We learn these rules easily and readily. We have a hard time unlearning them when the causal relationship breaks down. Sometimes you get to a point where more A does not lead to more B.
Money and happiness is a great example. If you graph income and happiness on separate curves, they match up for a long while. Having money makes us happier, because we worry less, we can afford nicer things, more leisure time, security for our families, freedom, etc. However, numerous studies have found that after a while these curves “decouple.” Money can keep going up, but happiness levels off. The growing disconnect can lead to depression, as people keep adding A and don’t get any more of B. There’s a limited amount of happiness we can feel (B), but an unlimited amount of money we can imagine having (A). The difference has driven people mad.

The same is true of rules. If we add rules (A), we usually get a healthier society (B). As a parent, you must know this even better than I do! Kids even seem to enjoy having the structure of some rules, because it makes the world feel predictable and fair. They go insane in the rare households that shirk all rules. But you probably also know that too many rules don’t lead to perfect harmony. You can’t keep adding A until you get an ideal B. There’s a limit to how well people can function with one another. Society breaks down when we think that if we just had a few more rules, everyone would be perfectly happy and well-behaved. The truth is that there are limits to how well a society can function, just as there are limits to human happiness. And yet we often keep testing cause and effect, hoping to drive B to the moon. It’s like giving water to a thirsty person until they drown.

In the silo, these two schools of philosophy are embodied by Juliette and Bernard. Bernard believes in Hobbes’ Leviathan. People only get along if they live under the crushing weight of a mountain of rules. Juliette is Rousseau’s Noble Savage. She thinks if you got rid of all the rules and just let people do what comes naturally, that everything will sort itself out and we’d all be a lot happier. Both of them are wrong. Bernard will never live to see that he was wrong. Juliette will come to a middle ground of truth eventually. And it is Lukas who will help her get there.

Lukas is an interesting character. I see him as a hero for being the very sort of milquetoast that we rarely imbue in our protagonists. We like protagonists at the extremes. Compromise isn’t sexy. But compromise is where we find harmony and truth.

IT is the Leviathan and Mechanical are the Noble Savages, and Lukas is torn between the two. He’s in love with a mechanic, but he works for IT. He is drawn to Juliette’s lawlessness, but he is reading the Legacy, a set of books that detail how the world came to an end and how easily the silo can collapse and kill everyone in it. He wants to live like Juliette, but he fears that his boss Bernard is correct, and the only way to keep everyone alive is through manipulation and untruths.

The reality is that Bernard’s way (the way of the Leviathan) is pure laziness. It’s the easy way. Just set strict rules and punish offenders with the dispassion of a machine. It’s our mandatory sentencing laws in the American justice system, where we are not allowed to take individual circumstances into account. Or how a banking algorithm determines whether an applicant gets a loan, because getting to know that person and deciding to invest in them is too much work. Racism and misogyny come from the same sort of laziness. It’s a shortcut. Lukas and Juliette will realize that a better system means a lot more work, but that it’s worth it.

By the time Juliette becomes mayor, she will have seen what happens to a silo with too many rules and lies … and also what happens to a silo that breaks free and reaches for ultimate truth and maximum freedom. The tightrope act required to exist in the middle must terrify her, but how can a good person choose anything but this? How can a good parent not choose to set rules but also know when they are able to be broken? How does thoughtful inconsistency not become the highest ideal at some point? It must. The exceptions are what define us, not the rules they burst through. The challenge is acquiring the wisdom to know what exceptions matter and when. This is what makes for a good judge, free from mandatory sentencing. It’s what makes for a good banker, free from algorithms.

By the end of her journey, Juliette is the ultimate example of this tightrope act between leviathan and noble savage. She has the fiery spirit that allows exceptions but the keen mind that sees how all the rules should interlock like perfectly oiled cogs. She learns to not fear confrontation with people; she learns to be patient with others, and just as importantly learns to be patient with herself. To me, she embodies the ideal human adventure from our imperfect, beautiful selves to whatever wise and kind soul we might become before we die. We will never be perfect (a maximum amount of B), but we should never stop trying (a nonstop dose of A).

The post Human Nature appeared first on Hugh Howey.

The SPSFC Trophy!

The first annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) is just around the corner! We are locking down our bloggers and judges now, so get your applications in if you’re interested. Read here for more details.

Authors will be able to upload their novels on June 30th. We will be blogging about that on the days leading up to the submission time, so you know where to go and what to do.

What do we win?

I’m glad you asked! Let’s see what’s in this box, shall we?

Click Here To See The Trophy

[collapse]

The post The SPSFC Trophy! appeared first on Hugh Howey.

The WOOL TV show

Well, the news is out. In fact, the news seems to be everywhere (Variety, Deadline, Hollywood Reporter, Tor, Collider). Which means I can finally talk about it.

WOOL is coming to Apple TV in partnership with AMC.

I’ve written about the origin of the WOOL novels in the past, so I won’t bore you with that. But the road to adapting the trilogy for the screen has been just as wild and twisty. It started back when I was still working in a bookstore, watching my sales take off, and I had to violate my boss’s policy of having cell phones at our desk because I was expecting a call from Ridley Scott and Steve Zaillian.

It was around this time that I put in my two-weeks notice. Not because I was fielding calls from legends of cinema, but I was starting to earn more from my book sales than I was from selling other people’s books. It was going to be a better use of my time to write more stories. Back then, all I wanted was to support myself with my art, rather than doing it on the side. I didn’t take the film deal seriously, because I knew that these projects don’t actually get made. I wrote a Twitter thread about this recently. Nothing ever gets made.

I was right, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The folks at Fox produced two excellent scripts and attached a few directors, and we nearly crested the hill once or twice. But I kept my expectations low the entire time. I’ve watched others go through development hell over the years and knew how easily the wheels can come off. I was just happy to be in the mix, having creative discussions with other artists, reading brilliant scripts, talking about storytelling and this world that I’d dreamt up. Every little step was an absolute dream.

Five years ago or so, after all these efforts and close calls, I managed to get the rights back. This was a minor miracle, and it wouldn’t have happened were it not for the amazing folks at Fox and the fine people on Ridley and Steve’s teams. I owe them for allowing me to take a chance elsewhere, even after they’d invested so much time, effort, and money into the project. They didn’t have to. And yet they were among the first people to reach out and congratulate me yesterday. There are great people in Hollywood, despite rumors to the contrary. :)

By the time I got the film rights back, WOOL was a much bigger global brand. When we did the first deal, the book hadn’t yet become a huge bestseller. Now it was in over 40 countries and had hit the New York Times bestseller list twice. Also, television had by this time grown into an incredible medium for adapting stories. You could let a book breathe on the small screen, rather than truncating it. Instead of going for the biggest name in Hollywood to boost my book sales, I wanted to see if we could get a TV show made.

There were a lot interested parties. It eventually came down to three companies that start with the letter “A”. I started thinking of them as the AAA service that lends a hand when you get a flat or run out of gas, putting you back on the road again. But I could only choose one, and the pressure was immense. So many readers have high expectations for this series; I get emails and social media comments about it all the time. I ended up going with AMC, and we began developing WOOL for TV. But then Apple tapped us on the shoulder and asked if they could get involved. Miraculously, I’d ended up with two-thirds of my top choices.

As I’ve gotten to know the teams at Apple and AMC, I realize just how lucky I got. I was already a fanboy for AMCs shows. BREAKING BAD, MAD MEN, BETTER CALL SAUL, and the criminally under-watched HALT AND CATCH FIRE. And now Apple is making some of my favorite shows of all-time. TED LASSO was the best thing I saw during the pandemic, and possibly the most joy I’ve ever felt watching TV. One of my fav shows on TV right now is FOR ALL MANKIND. We live in a golden age for television, and these are two of the best companies at it right now. I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Things started to feel real when Graham Yost was attached to showrun WOOL. In the world of TV, showrunners are the most important piece of the puzzle. They serve as the head writer, but also the creative boss. Directors might change episode to episode, and so they all report to the showrunner. Graham would be in charge, and his background was impressive. JUSTIFIED was his creation. And he helped produce THE AMERICANS, one of the finest shows of all-time. Again, I was over the moon. We were batting a thousand at this point.

I joined a writers’ room in LA back before the pandemic struck, and we laid out the episodes of season one and started talking about how many seasons it would take to tell the story we had in mind. These were among the best weeks of my life. The room was full of creative, brilliant people who all loved this world, and we had a blast coming up with ways to delight and surprise fans of the series and all the viewers who will be new to the silo. I assumed this would be as far as things went, and I was completely satisfied. But then Graham took our vision to the higher-ups and they told him to have his team go write the scripts we’d outlined.

I’ve been fortunate to read these and offer notes over the last year. I can’t wait for you all to see what’s in store. Some of the scenes that are only glossed over in WOOL are played out in spectacular fan service. Again, I figured this was where the road would end, but that’s when we got a soft green light to start casting. It was yet one more major step that I couldn’t tell anyone about.

Holding all these steps back has been exhausting. I know how much you all want to see this get made, and with every little bit of progress I wanted to share my excitement with you. But we couldn’t say anything without an announcement, and the folks in charge were smart enough to not want to announce anything until it looked like a sure thing. So that’s where we are now. With the roles cast and contracts signed and finalized, the news was finally able to drop this week. I’m sure you’ll be hearing more soon as we get to filming. You won’t believe who’s in this cast. Some major shocks are ahead. And yeah, I’m right back to dying over here keeping secrets.

The long and short of it is that this isn’t a normal “hey this thing got optioned” announcement. It’s a “people are building sets and going over their lines” announcement. Sound stages are booked. Travel plans are being made. We might just be over the hill.

Then again, nothing ever gets made…

The post The WOOL TV show appeared first on Hugh Howey.