Jason Arnett's Blog, page 13

UPDATES UPDATED with more updates! (List 1 update 3)

Very cool cover by the great Phil HesterThings I'm working on. I'm listing them here because I was inspired by an author's list of projects and it makes sense for me to put them up here to be held accountable. Plus I like having code names for things. Makes me feel cool. Which I'm definitely not.

"Projects" are work-related (read: day job) writing. In each case they are collaborations. Everything else is personal. Unless I name a publisher. But yeah, I'm writing for the love of writing.

So here's the latest and newsiest:


The writing part of the re-write on The Cold Distance is done. The draft clocks in just a shade over 74K words. It'll go up and down a little as I edit the last half for passivity and clarity. Next step is to get some feedback to make sure it's actually readable. Will have to figure out where to go after that. I have ideas, though, so stay tuned.The Cold Distance is the first of a series titled Jugee and the Duchess. At least four books, maybe five. The cool thing is I've got them mostly written and just have to be able to put nose to grindstone to get them in something like publishable shape. So, here's hoping they all get to see the light of day.Topping that big news is that the second book in the Evolver series from Actionopolis is released! It's called Cell Structure and here's the info:

Prey becomes predator when Jackson Savage rushes to save his friend from the clutches of a mad scientist determined to rule the world. His father’s experimental DNA is changing him and every time Jackson evolves he becomes less human. Working with the secret organization, OCTAVE, he is engaging in combat with mutant monsters but each conflict risks him losing control of his own body. Will he be able to stop an army of monsters without losing his humanity?

Do me a solid and spread the word will you? I understand a digital version is coming but I will definitely have copies to sell at Kansas City Comicon in August.

Project BLUE was a submission for a national award at work. Good news is that we won our division and we're in the running for the grand prize for our category. I'll know about this one at the end of July. It stays on the list until then.JETPACK is waiting for an announcement before I can say anything else about it. MINER is still developing. It's been on the back burner while I finish TCD. It'll get some attention now that TCD is closer to done.The short stories that have been on the list are off for now while I get things sorted out with TCD and the other things above. With Cell Structure out, I have to get the third book whipped into shape. It's in a zero draft so it shouldn't take too long to get it to the publisher. So I'm adding two new things to the list under the codename AZTEC. First priority is to assemble my notes on these two stories and then start hammering at some outlines. So there it is. It's shaping up to be something of a busy year for writing and publishing. Please buy a copy of the Evolver books at Amazon so I can afford to put gas in the car.

Projects Update (or List 1 Update 2)

Things I'm working on. I'm listing them here because I was inspired by an author's list of projects and it makes sense for me to put them up here to be held accountable. Plus I like having code names for things. Makes me feel cool. Which I'm definitely not.

"Projects" are work-related writing. In each case they are collaborations. Everything else is personal. None of it has a home yet, either. So yeah, I'm writing for the love of writing.

Anyway, here it is from January 18th with updates from today:


Cold Distance re-write - progress to date tracked on the right side of the blog ->. Aiming for completion of this draft by mid-February, proofing for a week, then out to a couple of beta readers. Then I will decide for sure what I'm going to do with. I'm still very, very tempted to self-publish even though this is an all-new version that could probably make the rounds of agents. We'll see. UPDATE 4.8.15: Yeah, this is still going along but I didn't make my deadline. Or the second one. I may make the third if the end of April is kinda flexible.Working on outlines for two sequels that don't get codenames yet. UPDATE 4.8.15: These are at the same stage as before. Not fallow but not moving right now. Next up after Cold Distance is done.Project CONTEMPORARY - outline submitted, waiting for further instruction - mid-March deadline UPDATE 4.8.15: Delivered with time to spare and presented to good review. DONE.Project BLUE - late March deadline. UPDATE 4.8.15: Turned in. Waiting for judgment. DONE.Project DOC - late March deadline. UPDATE 4.8.15: Decided not to pursue this one in favor of BLUE. DEAD.Project CARTE begins early April with end of July deadline. UPDATE 4.8.15: Will be starting later this month. Still have late July deadline, though.LUNA has lain fallow for months. It won't take long but it needs to be done and submitted. UPDATE 4.8.15: No change but creeping up on my radar.SWITCH is in the same boat as LUNA. UPDATE 4.8.15: SEE LUNAStill waiting to hear about CELL. Will finish OUTGROWTH when CELL is a go. Won't take long. UPDATE 4.8.15: Still waiting. Haven't pushed and I could but there's no need right now. Patience, grasshopper.Still researching and developing DOGHOUSE and LOOT. UPDATE 4.8.15: Bits and pieces. Will keep at it.New thing JETPACK is yet to be announced. I have turned in an outline and work is in process. More to come. First of at least two collaborations.New thing MINER is in development. Nothing to see here yet but adding it to the list is a step toward believing it will actually happen. Stay tuned on this one. Second collaboration.

Barreling Through (Annotated)

Updated March 29, 2015 9:30 AM

I don't necessarily subscribe to Writer's Block (WB) as a Thing. One can work thru it or not. It's a choice to do or do not.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

The last month or so has been an extremely trying time. Lots of stress and obligations piling up like a damned mountain. I couldn't write.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Suffice to say that overwhelming isn't a strong enough word. I've got to finish this novel and get it to beta readers, make revisions and turn it over to my editor. Every time I opened the file to work, I would get one, maybe two sentences in and know that I wasn't present enough to do this. I tried everything I could to shake it but nothing worked. I couldn't concentrate for more than ten minutes and the novel requires more than that.

The sweet spot was @planet_comicon where I got to relax and write Velocity Readouts for folks who thought writer's sketches were cool ideas.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Here's more information about what a Velocity Readout is. Planet Comicon was great for me. I was absolutely relaxed and into it while I was there. Coming out of it I went back to the reality of the stress I was able to leave behind for three days. It was a lot like a mini vacation and there was a lot of love for what I was doing there too.

Strangers giving me prompts was liberating. I didn't have to think too hard but just enough to create something quickly. I wasn't blocked.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

The issue was I couldn't concentrate long enough on larger works. Even reading stuff by my friends wouldn't have gotten proper attention.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Hell, reading novels wasn't possible. Personal stuff got in the way of just about everything. It didn't prevent me thinking, only writing.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Short stories, flash fictions, comics. That's all I could give my attention to. It hurt that I couldn't read two things that friends had given me to read. I tried, I really tried, but I wasn't able to give the attention I know was necessary. Even stuff at the day job had to be broken down into small enough bits that I could still get things accomplished.

Fortunately, this last week has resolved almost all the issues that had created the ultra high stress levels. And as bad as all this was for me, it was worse for the people I love so dearly that it was directly affecting. Even with my abilities, I can't imagine how difficult all this is for them.

With the stress levels declining, I'm able to come back to things that've been ignored for four, five, six weeks or more. I'm really behind.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

That brings a whole other level of stress. Self imposed deadlines loom LARGE. If I'm going to make it, I've got to put nose to grindstone.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

The novel HAS to be done in the next two weeks. The window to self-publshing on the schedule I've set myself is closing. Even though it's a different kind of stress, it's also energizing. I know I can do this.

Which will be easy to do now that things are much more back to 'normal'. So I guess what this is all about is that life gets in the way.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

And when life gets in the way, falling back on an excuse to not write is a bad thing. Shifting gears and focus can help. It has me, anyway.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

There's a big pile of things that aren't done that should be and new things are coming in too. It would be easy to give up and meltdown.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

The new things that have popped up are a ways off, fortunately. They're not really part of the stress level though they will be once I get the novel done. I've never been a good juggler. My organizational skills (as they pertain to my writing) leave a lot to be desired too, but I'm coming up with a cunning plan that involves coffee and late nights. Maybe that's not so cunning...

But all these things matter to me. A LOT. I can do this, I have support on all sides. I'm gonna have to rely on that and understanding.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

You can do it too. Don't give up. Set things aside but don't stop thinking. Distract yourself with small things writing- and reading-wise.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Look, not writing is an excuse. Maybe you're blocked but most likely you're not. Maybe you're just telling yourself you are. Find a way to do the work you want to do. If you don't want to do it, find something else. I think it's really that simple. Really. Which led me to wind up with:

You're not blocked. You're buffering. #amwriting
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

At some point tomorrow I will come back and annotate this to expand on a couple of things I didn't in the Tweets. As you can see it went on for a while. Anyway, collected here for the benefit of whoever could get some use out of it.

Barreling Through

I don't necessarily subscribe to Writer's Block (WB) as a Thing. One can work thru it or not. It's a choice to do or do not.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

The last month or so has been an extremely trying time. Lots of stress and obligations piling up like a damned mountain. I couldn't write.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

The sweet spot was @planet_comicon where I got to relax and write Velocity Readouts for folks who thought writer's sketches were cool ideas.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Strangers giving me prompts was liberating. I didn't have to think too hard but just enough to create something quickly. I wasn't blocked.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

The issue was I couldn't concentrate long enough on larger works. Even reading stuff by my friends wouldn't have gotten proper attention.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Hell, reading novels wasn't possible. Personal stuff got in the way of just about everything. It didn't prevent me thinking, only writing.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

With the stress levels declining, I'm able to come back to things that've been ignored for four, five, six weeks or more. I'm really behind.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

That brings a whole other level of stress. Self imposed deadlines loom LARGE. If I'm going to make it, I've got to put nose to grindstone.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

Which will be easy to do now that things are much more back to 'normal'. So I guess what this is all about is that life gets in the way.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

And when life gets in the way, falling back on an excuse to not write is a bad thing. Shifting gears and focus can help. It has me, anyway.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

There's a big pile of things that aren't done that should be and new things are coming in too. It would be easy to give up and meltdown.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

But all these things matter to me. A LOT. I can do this, I have support on all sides. I'm gonna have to rely on that and understanding.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

You can do it too. Don't give up. Set things aside but don't stop thinking. Distract yourself with small things writing- and reading-wise.
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

You're not blocked. You're buffering. #amwriting
— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 28, 2015

At some point tomorrow I will come back and annotate this to expand on a couple of things I didn't in the Tweets. As you can see it went on for a while. Anyway, collected here for the benefit of whoever could get some use out of it.

Planet Comicon 2015

This show was a blast from start to finish. I arrived late enough on Friday morning that there was a bit of chasing around to gather up my Artists Alley badge. With the help of Volunteer Emma, I got my credentials and set up in time for the show start.

I love that Artists Alley was inside the entrance. There was a lot of traffic past both ends of the row so I had a good view of the cosplayers. Several Agent Carters and lots of John Constantines throughout the show. The Constantines (that's the name of my new band, btw) all looked too pressed and clean, too much like Agent Carter. Anyway, it's a small thing but one I noticed.

It would probably behoove me to mention everyone I got to talk to but there were so many and I didn't make it around to see everyone I wanted to. Anyway, the panels were great. All of them were lots of fun and we had great questions. The last one about prose writing had great attendance and terrific questions.

I have to thank everyone who stopped by the table and complimented my live writing. Most especially I am grateful to those of you who actually commissioned me to write a piece using your prompt. They included "Space Knight", "Panda", "Pandemonium Jabberwocky", "Werewolf Skeleton Dog", "Rapidly Moving Snail", and "Glitter Suplex". There were more but these stuck out. I loved writing each and every one of them.

Since this is now a week after the fact and I have to get on with things like finishing this novel, I'm going to leave it there.

Except to say that I will be back at Planet Comicon next year. If you didn't get a Velocity Readout at the show hit me up on Twitter or Facebook. I'll be glad to get 'em to you via mail.

All right, that's all. The show was great, I had a spectacular time and hope you did, too.

My Planet Comicon Schedule

I'm moderating 4 panels at Planet Comicon this year:

Friday - 3:30 WWE Artist Rob Schamberger

Saturday - 11:30 Designing Dynamic Comic Book Covers (Tim Bradstreet, Jason Latour, Phil Noto, and Ashley Witter discuss their approach to creating amazing cover art.)

Sunday - 1:30 Comics Art: Visual Storytelling (Featuring Kyle Strahm, Reilly Brown, Rick Buchett, and Tim Townsend.)

Sunday - 3:00 Perfect Prose: Novels Across Genres (Featuring Alex Grecian (The Yard), Ellie Ann, R. L. Naquin, and Ande Parks.)

Make sure to download the show program (with a fantastic cover by Daniel Spottswood!) to design your con experience.

I'm excited about all of these and really looking forward to meeting the folks I've never met before. The cover panel ought to be fascinating and I'm trying to come up with a couple of good questions. The Schamberger panel promises to be a lot of fun as Rob has teased some big news we'll be able to talk about during that time.

In between panels I'll be in Artists Alley at Table #331. I'll have some things to sell including at least one reprint of an old mini comic and a new story to go with it. Mostly I'll be hawking my Velocity Readouts  and trying to catch up with folks I tend to only see once a year during the con.

Hope to see you all there and if you can, come out to the panels that interest you. It means a lot to the folks on stage for you to be in the audience.

SFTV

Let's talk about science fiction television shows. Here's a quick and by no means comprehensive list:


Battlestar Galactica (both versions)Doctor WhoRevolutionStar Trek (TOS, Next Gen, DS9, etc...)Babylon 5FarscapeFirefly (and Serenity)Orphan BlackHelixX-FilesContinuumTwilight ZoneLOSTThe Black MirrorStargateSix Million Dollar ManRed DwarfTorchwoodAnd so, so, so many more. 
For me, the list above isn't in any kind of order and I haven't watched all these shows, some I've only watched parts of. I didn't include the superheroes because they're not always science fiction though they inevitably veer that way. 
Anyway, I'm a fan of Firefly and Continuum and Doctor Who. I've watched the Twilight Zone since I was a kid. I grew up watching the Six Million Dollar Man and other things like Space:1999 and Time Tunnel. 

All my life it's been easy to write off science fiction television as juvenile. That is until Star Trek came along. Social commentary had long existed in SF prose but it reached a new level on TV under Gene Roddenberry's leadership. Roddenberry changed everything. Everything.

In fact you can see the influence in everything on TV from pretty much 1970 on though it becomes more evident in the mid-1990s. When we get to 1999 and the SciFi Channel drops Farscape on us, it's a level up. The Star Wars trilogy in the 70s and early 80s gave us a little taste with special effects going up a dozen notches but not so much in the diversity category or social commentary.

Fast forward to LOST where there's a wide representation of humanity on a tiny island and LOTS of social commentary.

You can see the influences if you look hard enough. Not just in spinoffs like Torchwood from the new Doctor Who but in things like Farscape influencing the relaunch of Doctor Who. Not directly maybe but the production values of Farscape - which as a show would have definitely benefited from attention from the nascent Internet - were so high that Doctor Who had to prove its concept was sound before it could get there but it did.

Storytelling has gotten more complex over the last twenty years too. Seasons/series are entire stories with subplots and that may not payoff until the next series/season. That's the influence of comic books and soap operas.  Continuum is a great example of a mix of character development and complex storytelling. So is Orphan Black.

 Okay, so that's the groundwork. What's your favorite science fiction television show? Why?

Live Writing

I got confirmation this week that I will have a table in Artists Alley at Planet Comicon March 13 - 15.

So, what will I have to offer? There'll be some assortment of printed stories to sell, a couple of larger sketch-type things too. I hope to have those to preview here in the week leading up to the con.

But the big deal will be doing more Velocity Readouts. Here are the basics:

Give me a prompt - two or three words - and I'll handwrite an original story for you. More details here if you're interested.

Prior to the show, I'll need to do some warmups. This is where you readers come in. Leave me a prompt in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter (@ajasont) and use the hashtag #VelocityReadout if you would, please.

I'll do my best to get them turned around in a day or less. Additionally, over on Twitter and maybe even on Facebook, I'll hit you all up for prompts and do them more or less live. Turned around in 20 minutes or less like I'll try to do at the convention. Sounds ambitious typed out like that. Still, I've done it before.

Stick with me. Help me get my chops up for this. It's going to be fun.

More to come.

A Day (Not Quite) Mis-Spent

Ah, this takes me back. I was a young guy when this happened. The company I worked for was responsible for bringing these guys in. They got booked before the album broke big and played the show even though there were probably opportunities elsewhere to make a lot more money. Their integrity was solid. 29,000 fans showed up. At least that's the number I heard over and over. Maybe it was less. Maybe not.

Anyway, it's cool that this is online. The sound isn't great and the angle is poor but it's definitely as close to being there as anything else. It was a free show for those that attended. Part of the still-new Day on the Hill series that Student Union Activities put on. There was a great run from SUA in the late 80s/early 90s. Oingo Boingo came through on one of their last tours. Primus and Fishbone did a Halloween show. Nirvana played at KU, so did Faith No More, before their respective records blew up to national attention. Ah, those were the days...

Unfortunately I wasn't there. I had to work that day and I needed the money so I missed out. Now I can watch the show anytime I want and I can drink beer while doing it. (The KU campus had just gone 'dry' shortly before this.

Here you go. Pearl Jam at Day on the Hill at the University of Kansas. 1992. Enjoy.

Art-Making Animals

Unfortunately I misspelled Gauguin's name on Twitter. Fixed that here.
Image from here.Last night I attended a wonderful, inspiring lecture given by author Margaret Atwood. The ambitious title of her lecture (“Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?: The Arts, The Sciences, The Humanities, The Inhumanities, and The Non-Humanities. Zombies Thrown In Extra”) presaged an evening of insight, laughter and deeper thinking. The whale testicles were apparently a bonus. (You had to be there.) She wondered out loud if perhaps the invitation committee had asked Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, or Ruth Rendell before they'd approached her.

She riffed on being in Kansas (sigh, as so many often do) by making reference to The Wizard of Oz. Instead of being tedious about it, she took it a step further by challenging us to be Not Kansas. That is, be more exotic, exciting, perhaps even dangerous by creating "an embarrassing pop star of your own". That said, it's disappointing that the world only really knows Kansas by the film of a hundred year-old novel series. We need to work harder at being Not Kansas.

Going even further, she talked a great deal about the above painting by Paul Gauguin, adding layers of meaning by intimating that the topless Tahitian ladies might be talking to an off-panel figure. (I think she mentioned it might've been the Pope but I didn't take a lot of notes.) I mention this only to note that like any author she looks at something and starts reading into it something more that becomes entertaining.

In the heart of her talk, Atwood told us that humans are born artists, though not necessarily good ones. As soon as we see crayons and wallpaper we want to draw. She called us "art-making animals". I love that tag and I will wear it proudly.  "We do art". Yep. Absolutely.

She wound up our time together (there were 1100 of us that came to hear her and the crowd was expected to top out around 400 or so) by talking about zombies, vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein's monster. Zombies are the perfect metaphor for how people tend not to think when faced with oppression. Vampires are elegant, given to tell-all books and rich. Werewolves are not so elegant, running around only in fur and wondering "Was that really me last night?" As for Frankenstein's monster, despite his ill-fitting clothes he is still intelligent when he needs to be and especially talkative when met in the Arctic.

Zombies, though, zombies don't care about their clothes and seem only to be running around biting anyone they can find to turn their victims into more zombies. They are mindless, uncaring in the extreme and relentless. They are reflective of how we think of ourselves. Their currently popularity should frighten the hell out of anyone who takes the time to give it any thought at all.

From that I inferred that she means for us to think more, to read more, to be more like vampires who take the time to improve their lot because they live longer. Theoretically. As long as there's not some Slayer running around intent on cutting short that extra life. Anyway, I digress. As always, Atwood inspires us to be better, to pay more attention. When talking about Humanities as a course of study, in concert with science, she drew a line very clearly that "the Humanities are not rocket science".

Rather the problems that face us as humans on this earth must be solved by crossing disciplines. Human culture needs to be speculative and critical and must work in concert with the empirical nature of science. This is something that doesn't seem to happen much anywhere, let alone in our corridors of power.

We must open our minds, absorb everything we need to thrive. Our ancestors did it, we do it as babies. Instead, we get hung up on one thing and we become Kansas: comfortable, safe, sedate.

Let's look at things like she does: let's imagine something even more interesting than what's presented to us. Then let's pursue that line of thinking and see where it takes us.

During the Q&A, a teacher mentioned that her students, when they read Atwood's stories, feel "overwhelmed and depressed" which seemed to please the author. Her advice to the young students who feel that way is this: It's just a book. Close it. Take it as a cautionary tale and work hard to not let these things happen.

Which summed up the entire evening nicely. I hope that her talk will be available online or in print somewhere. She was brilliant as expected. Which explains the crowd that filled two rooms completely.