S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 117

College Footbal Will Break Your Heart

I'm a little angry with Steve Sarkisian at the moment.  The University of Washington Husky football coach chose at the end of last nights 59-7 victory over Colorado chose to quit instead of kicking a field goal.  A successful field goal would have brought the score of the game to 62-7.  Rather the Huskies took a knee on 4th down with less than a minute left in the game.  The Colorado Buffaloes didn't even try to advance the ball and the game ended with a whimper.

Why did I want 62 points rather than 57?  Because I wanted every point we could get to show that the Huskies are back after losing three in a row, including a blow-out at Arizona State.  Yes, Colorado is the second worst team in the Pac-12 (California, who we beat two weeks ago with a bye last week, is the worst) but still, the more dramatically we destroyed Colorado the better we'll look going into bowl selection season.  And last night's win made the Dawgs bowl eligible.

I like college football and, of course, love my Huskies.  But the thing I like about college football breaks your heart at the same time.  You watch these kids grow and learn and get better over their time playing or a team.  But then they leave and go to the pros.  We had Jake Locker for four years (he started at quarterback as a true freshmen) and watched his ups and downs.  But then he left.  Current quarterback Keith Price is a senior.  He has one more game in Husky Stadium and, including a bowl game, four games left.  And he's been amazing this year.  These kids come up, turn into wonderful players you love to watch (such as Bishop Sankey) and then they leave.

 So what's great about college football is also what will break your heart.

The Dawgs have three regular-season games left: next Friday at UCLA, a game I think they have a chance to win; then at Oregon State where they should win; and finally the Apple Cup against Washington State that they'd better win.

When the Fantastic Becomes Mundane

This morning it was 37 degrees outside.  Inside the house it was 72 degrees.  With a turn of a knob hot, clean water rained down on my body, allowing me to clean myself.

That mundane, every-day experience would be, 100 years ago, an unspeakable luxury.  And 200 years ago it was unavailable to the richest person on the planet and, if the term existed at the time, would have been thought wild science fiction.

This is why science fiction writers have it so tough.  What mundane yet amazing thing will people experience 100 years from now?  From my work in progress, Treasure of the Black Hole, comes this sentence:

"Thanks, doll," I said, and walked through the dilating door to my office.

No comment, no reaction by my character, just a regular mundane thing that would be, in this age, science fiction.

Another example from the real world.  Before the invention of the steam engine, the fastest thing around was probably a galloping horse that went, what, 35 miles per hour?  Then with steam came trains, then internal combustion gave us cars and propeller-driven airplanes.  Finally jet engines routine fly people around at over 500 miles per hour.  Cars, airplanes, trains are all mundane to us.  To an 18th Century man, they would have been fantastical.

Or think about the Internet which is only about, as a consumer product, 20 years old.  Yet we all use it, take it for granted, and it's become a mundane part of our lives.  In 20 years.

Of course, you don't want to write about mundane things.  A description of my shower, even published 200 years ago, would be rather boring.  But you, as a science fiction writer need to decided what is mundane to your characters and what is extraordinary.

WIP it Good

My WIP (Work in Progress) first draft is done.  I finished yesterday early afternoon after waking up at 3:00 A.M. and not being able to go back to sleep.  I wrote 8,440 words yesterday.  That's 14.7% of the total final length of the novel.  I was aiming for 60,000 words but it only ended up 57,478 or 2,522 words short.  I'm not worried.  Gods of Strife (my last completed novel that is now at my publisher) had a first draft that was about 77,000 words and the final version ended up being 88,000 words or 11,000 words longer (another 14.3% longer).  So the current WIP will, after re-writes, edits, and proofreading end up being over 60,000 words easily.

The problem is NaNoWriMo.  I pledged to write 30,000 words and I'm part of a group that is counting on me to put out a bunch of words.  And yes, I've written 17,274 words so far in November (including 160 words today on slight revisions to the WIP I made this morning) which is over half my goal of 30,000 words and not a bad start on 50,000 words, I pretty much have nothing to write about to get the remaining 12,726 words needed to reach 30,000 (32,726 to reach 50,000).  Yes, I'm ahead of the curve (I've written 10 days worth of NaNoWriMo writing rate in less than 4 days) but I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO WRITE.

In a week or so I can start doing revisions and re-writes on my WIP, but that's slow and doesn't add a lot of words very quickly.  If I could come up with an idea for a novella or something else to write, maybe I could reach at least 30,000 words.  I don't know.  I am, unfortunately, not a writer who can write on demand.  I need to have a good idea at least to start with.

So my first attempt at NaNoWriMo maybe be a crash and burn.  But mostly because I had my WIP nearly finished by November 1st.

Oh, and the WIP is called The Black Hole Treasure (although I may change that to Treasure of the Black Hole) and is a hard-boiled private detective about 5,000 years in the future.  Sort of a "Sam Spade in Space."

NaNoWriMo . . . Kind Of.

I know I said I wasn't doing NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month).  To be specific what I said was:

So this year I'm in the middle of a work in progress (WIP).  It's tentatively titled The Black Hole Treasure.  My goal is for it to be at least 60,000 words long.  As of this moment it is 37,855 words long.  For NaNoWriMo I promised to produce 30,000 words on this WIP (which is not what you're supposed to do).

So I'm keeping track of the words I'm writing in November and hope to write at least 30,000 words.  I have as of this moment, written 8,123 words in my WIP in the two days of NaNoWriMo.  So NaNoWriMo is working for me in that it is motivating me to work in my novel.  I went to a "write in" last night and had a blast (and wrote about 2,000 word for a total of 6,345 yesterday).  So I am doing NaNoWriMo . . . kind of.

The only problem is, on October 31st, I only had 19,538 words left to reach my word goal for The Black Hole Treasure.   So I am going to be 10,462 words short of my 30,000-word goal if I just reach the length I'm aiming for in the novel.

Now, it'll probably be longer.  I was aiming for 80,000 words for Gods of Strife (which is still at my publisher) and it ended up being over 88,000 words.  But I don't think this novel will be 17% longer than planned.  In fact, I'm a bit worried about getting to my 60,000-word goal.

So I'm sort of doing NaNoWriMo (and I have not killed my inner editor because I am still trying to make everything I write as good as possible and not just WRITE WORDS).  But toward the end I might have to find something else to write to meet my 30,000-word goal.

 

Why I Started Writing

I don't believe I have ever told, here at least, the story of how and why I became a writer.  And doing so was inspired by a tweet I received on my Twitter account (see picture at left).  I was asked "what got you started in this wonderful field?" and I replied "Legos."  Which while both true and accurate, is not the complete story.

In circa 1966 I received a set of Legos for Christmas.  It was a pretty extensive set for the time, with wheels and lots of blocks and different pieces.  At that time they did not give you instructions (at least I don't remember any).  Now they have a picture on the box of what you're supposed to make and instructions.  I think that's just stupid.

Anyway, the first thing I remember doing with my Legos was building cars, trucks, airplanes, helicopters and making up stories about the worlds I built.  (My mother once observed that while I preferred making vehicles, other children seemed to build houses; even then I liked fast things.)

Meanwhile, I was a television junky.  I loved TV even though we only had two channels in southeastern Idaho (we got a PBS station around 1973 and finally an ABC affiliate around 1976).

I loved stories.  I loved watching them on TV and I loved making them up with my Lego worlds.
When I was about 12 I decided I should write my stories down.  I taught myself how to type using my older sister's high school typing manual and "borrowed" my older brother's typewriter.  I'm assuming whatever I wrote in those days was pretty jejune.  Nothing has survived, as far as I know (thank God).  But I kept writing,, for almost 40 years I kept writing, working on it off and on as I went through the stages of my life, including 20 years in the business world.

It took me nearly 20 years to finally be published, and now I have four books published (and 6 written, but we won't talk about that).  I'm working on a science fiction novel now.

And that's why I started writing: Legos.

Which is interesting because I'm sure my parents never had any idea that Legos would lead me to writing.

NaNoWriMo . . . Not!

Friday is November first and that means it's the start of NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month).  The object is to write 50,000 words of a novel (can be a complete novel or part of a novel) in the 30 days of November.  You're not supposed to start the novel, however, until November 1st.

I tried to do NaNoWriMo in 2011.  I did it unofficially on my own because at the time I was not part of any organized writing group.  The result: I wrote about 30,000 words in November, hit a research wall (i.e, I needed more research to go on), and it ended up taking me about five months to write the approximately 81,000-word novel which became Book of Death .

But, in the spring of this year, I wrote an 77,000-word first draft in 35 days ending March 23rd (the final draft was 88,000 words).  That's about 66,000 words in 30 days which obviously exceeds the NaNoWriMo goal.  I just did it in February and March instead of November.  That novel, Gods of Strife (sequel to Book of Death and part of the Adept Series) is at my publisher.  So, I can write 50,000 words in 30 days if I want to.

Last Friday I went to my local writers' group's NaNoWriMo kickoff gathering.  I learned more about NaNoWriMo than I knew before (I first joined the writers' group in December of last year).  And I know, now, what the goal and philosophy of NaNoWriMo is.  And, to be honest, I have some problems with it, now.

They have you sign an "Agreement and Statement of Understanding" which states, in part:

During the month ahead I realize I will produce clunky dialogue, clichéd characters, and deeply flawed plots.  I agree that all of these things will be left in my rough draft, to be corrected and/or excised at a later point.

In other words, the goal of NaNoWriMo is to just get words down on paper (or hard drive).  I realize some people need this.  They even talked about "locking up" your inner editor that tells you that what you're writing is crap.  Just keep writing!  They say don't go back and edit/re-write.  Just keep writing!  Don't worry if what you are writing is actually crap.  Just keep writing!

I see some validity in this.  Some people just need the push to write without their self-doubt stopping them.  But some people need their self-doubts because they aren't very good.  Combine that with the ease of publishing these days, and a lot of crappy NaNoWriMo books are being published because people are forgetting the next stage: edit and polish your work.

For example, the Gods of Strife first draft was written in 35 days.  But there was over three months of editing, proofreading, beta reading, and just plain re-writing before I thought it was ready to be submitted.  Yes, you may write 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, but you have probably 3 months of work to do polishing it into something decent.  Don't forget that step.

There is some validity to the NaNoWriMo philosophy.  I keep seeing a quote attributed to Hemingway: "Write drunk, edit sober."  Pounding out 1,666 words per day is pretty much writing drunk.  Also a quote attributed to Hemingway: "Everything is shit in first draft."

But a lot of NaNoWriMo participants forget that, and go ahead and publish their crappy first draft, which reflects badly on all authors, especially those independent authors who actually strive to put out a quality product. (Seems I've discussed this before.)  NaNoWriMo, to me, encourages bad writing in the name of JUST KEEP WRITING.  It does not teach new writers the skills they need to make their work good.  It's quantity over quality.  And that's never a good combination.

So this year I'm in the middle of a work in progress (WIP).  It's tentatively titled The Black Hole Treasure.  My goal is for it to be at least 60,000 words long.  As of this moment it is 37,855 words long.  For NaNoWriMo I promised to produce 30,000 words on this WIP (which is not what you're supposed to do).

For the new writer who needs a push to actually write, I see NaNoWriMo can have some usefulness.  For me, I write anyway and I don't need prodded to write.  My inner editor is alive and well and tells me when I need to fix problems.  But I have not given it the power to stop me from writing. 

Sure, sometimes months go by when I haven't been writing.  But NaNoWriMo is not going to make me write more.  So while I'm sort of doing NaNoWriMo, I'm not doing it, really.

The Lucky Hat is 5-1

Last night the Washington Huskies beat California rather handily. It was such a blow out that we put our second string in during much of the 4th quarter.  The final score was 17-44, Cal making a touchdown against what I assume was our second string defense.

The Huskies needed this win and if they didn't win, their season was pretty much over.  For one thing, they'd lost three in a row, including an unexpected slaughter at the hands of Arizona State last week.  And for another thing, Cal is the worst team in the Pac-12 going into this game with a 1-6 record, and that win against an FSC team (Portland State).  So if the Huskies lost, it would be a disaster.

Lucky HatBut they didn't lose and I think it's my lucky hat.  Okay, I don't really, but the lucky hat is 5-1 now for
this season and the one loss was when a bad call cost us a chance to win.  One week ago I was at a Toastmasters convention when the Huskies were manhandled by Arizona State and I wasn't wearing the hat (nor watching the game).  Two weeks ago I was at a writers' retreat and still not wearing the hat nor watching the game.  So I blame the hat.

Okay, not really, after all, I try to think scientifically.

The Huskies are now 5-3, but only 2-3 in conference.

The Huskies' regular season records since Steve Sarkisian became head coach are:
2009: 5-7 (coming off a 0-12 year under Coach Ty Willingham)
2010: 7-5
2011: 7-5
2012: 7-5

Are you seeing a pattern here?  I was hoping this year for a 10-2 record, figuring we'd be very lucky to beat the Phil Knight Ducks, Stanford, and UCLA but might beat one of them.  So far we've lost to Oregon and Stanford and ASU.  If we get lucky and beat UCLA that means a 9-3 season.  If we lose to UCLA (which seems likely, I hate to say) and beat everyone else left, that's a 8-4 season.  Not much of an improvement over the past three years.  One unlucky loss and we're back at 7-5.

In college football there is no draft system.  And success garners success.  The more successful your team is, the more likely you can attract great players.  If you're not so successful, you have to look for that diamond in the rough that other schools might have missed but you think can be a Jake Locker or a Bishop Sankey.

The Dawgs have some great players (such as Sankey) but they are rough around the edges still.  Penalties were much fewer last night but there was one stupid one that cost us a touchdown.  And quarterback Price is a senior so this is his last year.  We'll probably make it to a bowl (if we can't beat Colorado in two weeks after a bye, we're really in trouble) but we won't be ranked again unless we manage to beat UCLA.

One thing is for certain: I will be wearing the lucky hat!

Guest Post, Voss Foster, Author of Zirkua Fantastic

Voss FosterToday we are happy to host Voss Foster, author of the new fantasy novel Zirkua Fantastic :

Immersion is a part of the circus experience, and a strong visual impact is one of the key elements of immersion. When you go to a circus, everything is just a bit different, at least… and sometimes more than a bit. A huge tent, usually in bright colors.
Make-up and costumes are a huge part of it. Traditional circus colors are vibrant reds and golds, because the red immediately catches the eye, and the gold feigns opulence The costumes, in their complexity, are also a clear signal that you're no longer in the outside world. You're somewhere entirely different, where people wear top hats and tails and spandex body suits.
For Zirkua Fantastic, I wanted something with a little more majesty. Instead of being way out there, impossible to miss colors, I tried for a level of elegance with maroon and silver for the tent.
With costumes, I was more lenient. More often than not, I tried to work with black, white, and grey. Simple colors that wouldn't interfere with the performances, but that would still draw in the eye. Things like a full, white tuxedo, or the huge, black and white form of Madame Zerga.
When you cross the threshold into that big top, everything should shift. That's what I tried to achieve: from page one, I wanted the reader's world to shift just a little to the left.
Zirkua Fantastic has been steadily running since 1753, amazing its
patrons with acts of otherworldly skill and prowess. But that talent
comes at a steep price: each artist must give a year of his or her
life to the circus. None of them know why, only that the circus'
owners will go to whatever lengths are necessary to ensure it. Toby,
the hoop dancer at Zirkua Fantastic and son of one of the owners, is
content with his life: he enjoys performing and Zirkua's wandering
life, and even has a boyfriend among the circus' hawkers. But when a
new artist arrives, bringing with him a strange flask and a number of
odd occurrences, Toby falls face-first into the truth behind the
circus: Its contracts bind King Jester, the immortal embodiment of
chaos.

Zirkua's performances and contracts have held King Jester prisoner for
centuries, but now something's amiss. King Jester's sister, Dragon,
has escaped her own bonds and is working to free her brother, and his
power is growing. If he is loosed on the world, it will mean the worst
war in human history and the end of civilization... unless Zirkua
Fantastic can find a way to stop him.
 Excerpt:
As the caravan rambled down the interstate, Tobias rolled onto his side. The prop wagon wasn't the most comfortable. He'd have to opt out of practice to sleep once they got the tent up. No hope for that here.
He tossed aside the air silk he'd been using as a blanket and sat up, looking around, listening to the truck's tires thud across potholes and cracked pavement. He checked the straps holding the crates, tightened one that had loosened on the drive. "Crap." If one came loose, others could, too. He pushed himself off his stack of crates and toppled when they hit a particularly nasty bump. "When was the last time they fixed up this road?" He dragged himself up and stumbled toward the rear door of the truck, cranking straps tighter as he went. Once he got used to the movement, he sped up, tightening down all the cargo in fifteen or twenty minutes. Only the first strap had come loose.
Wood scraped against wood. His heart beat faster, breath catching. He scanned through the truck. Nothing had moved, to his eye. "Just another bump." Palm pressed to his chest, he tried to force his heartbeat back down to something normal. "Nothing to worry about."
He sat back on his crates and wrapped himself in the air silk. Sleeping or not, he needed a barrier against the cold and, though he would never admit it, it left him feeling safer, more protected against whatever probably wasn't in the truck with him. He scanned the boxes a final time, just in case he had missed something.
Still nothing out of place. Not that Tobias could see much in the dark. He tossed the silk over his head and lay down on the crates, desperate for some semblance of sleep. He sucked in a deep breath. The silk smelled like tobacco.
He heard some kind of rustling and flipped the silk back over his head. Cerulean eyes filled his gaze. The familiar, heady scent rushed into his nostrils. "Marley."
"You sound surprised."
"A little." Marley lifted the silk and climbed in next to Toby, snuggling up so close his scent filled the cocoon. Nice to have you here. "I mean, this is an artist's wagon. It's not really the sort of thing you do."
He chuckled, hot breath cascading over Toby's back. "That's not quite true." He kissed Toby's neck, sending a chill racing along the corded muscles. "I end up in the prop wagon most nights."
"Do you?" He did his best to sound unfazed. In reality, he fought back warm, nervous laughter. "I'd think I would have noticed."
"Well, you did this time."
"So I did." Toby scooted closer, relishing in Marley's warmth. "And I'm very happy about it." He leaned his head against Marley's chest. The slight movement of the fabric wafted more of the intoxicating perfume into the space. "How much longer 'til we get to the next town, you think?"
"I'd give it an hour. Maybe a little more. If I'm any good at guessing distance." Marley pulled Tobias even closer. "You need to get some sleep, babe."
"Not if it's only an hour." He turned over and nuzzled into Marley's shirt, staring up into bright blue eyes. "I'd still be completely useless with only an hour's sleep." He yawned, and then slapped Marley across the arm. "Stop being so damn warm." The end of the sentence got muddled by a second, gaping yawn. "It's like sleeping with a space heater."
"You can't blame me for being hot. In fact, I remember you thanking me profusely on more than one occasion for it."
"Well, it's not very helpful when I'm trying to stay awake."
Marley chuckled. "Then get off."
He nestled closer in response, muttering into Marley's chest. "It's not that unbearable."
Marley wriggled his hand under Toby's chin, lifted his face, kissed him. "I figured that much."
 
Get your copy of this exciting new novel from Voss Foster here.

Diminishing the Brand

I'm kind of weird.  I like things a lot of other people find difficult and/or boring.  For instance, I like math (I'm just not very good at it).  I like science.  And I have a deep autodidactic interest in economics. 

You know that scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, with the economics teacher played brilliantly by ?  This scene.  Not only did I know all the answers to his questions, I wanted to listen to more!  I have taken one 200-level economics course in college but because of my major that's all I could fit in even though I found the subject very interesting.  Also, I've read economics books (mostly for general audiences) and every book nearly I can get my hands on by economists Walter E. Williams of George Mason University and Thomas Sowell of Stanford.  So I probably know a bit more about economics than the average Joe ("Ricardo's Principle of Comparative Advantage, anyone, anyone?").

So, I need to get a bit esoteric here (and don't let the scary chart above scare you).  In economics there's the law of supply and demand.  Basically it relates how supply (the amount available of something) affects its price.  Lots of supply means low price (like salt; I think I last paid 10 cents for a thing of salt).  Not much supply: high price (like diamonds).  So if there is a lot of something available, the price of it is going to go down.  Remember that for later.

Now, there is a principle in business and marketing called "diminishing the brand."  If, for instance, Lexus put out a $15,000 econobox car, it would reflect badly on their $100,000 cars.  It would "diminish the brand."  Doesn't matter if the $100,000 car is still just as good as before, people would perceive it differently.  This is probably one reason why the Volkswagen Phaeton flopped in the U.S.  Who's gonna buy an $80,000 car from the people who brought you the Beatle?  (Yes, I've now combined two of my loves: economic and cars, sorry about that.)

So here's where you as a writer should care.  There are 1 million (about) books available on the Kindle because the costs of publishing on the Kindle run from zero to not very much (depending on how much work you do yourself).  That has increased the quantity of books available.  And by the laws of supply and demand, the price of all books, even those not self-published, have to come down.  Also, buying a self-published Kindle book is a bit of a crap shoot.  You could end up with a Yugo (to continue the car analogy) or a Lexus.  Or better yet, a BMW (a bit more passion than a Lexus).

I suspect a great deal of the self-published (i.e., "indie") books on Kindle and other formats (including paperback), are pretty mediocre.  Well, you've got half a million or so indies, they can't all be brilliant undiscovered diamonds in the rough.  So people are expecting less from writers and our brand, so to speak, is being diminished by a huge supply of not-very-good books.  The supply has gone way up so the price is being driven down (as low as zero in some cases).  The quality has gone down too, so the brand "author" has diminished and this, too, has driven prices down.

I don't have a solution.  Amazon reviews help (but some indies get their friends and families to leave a bunch of 5-star reviews while I get a 2-star review because someone doesn't like my writing or something).  Even if you have a bunch of 4 and 5-star reviews, your brand is being diminished bythe shear quantity and low quality of other "authors."

And it seems those who sell the most books are not those who write the best books but are best at promotion (which might be sour grapes on my part because I seem to suck at promotion).

Podcast Interview

Today you can hear me being interviewed for a podcast by Brian LeTendre.  Brian does a great interview and it was a lot of fun and I think you'll have fun listening to it.  Well, except maybe the goofy guy talking about his writing.  Oh wait, that me.  The podcast is available on Brian's blog.  The interview starts at 5:29 into the podcast.  Boy, I hate listening to my own voice.